The  banners  of  the  tropics  fly  in  wild  disorder 


A    STAR    BOOK 


MYSTIC    ISLES 
OF   THE   SOUTH    SEAS 


BY 
FREDERICK  O'BRIEN 

Author  of  "  WHITE    SHADOWS   IN 
THE    SOUTH    SEAS,"  Etc. 


WITH   MANY 

ILLUSTRATIONS   FROM 

PHOTOGRAPHS 


GARDEN    CITY    PUBLISHING    COMPANY,    INC. 
GARDEN    CITY,    NEW    YORK 


Copyright,  1921,  by 
THE  CENTUBY  Co. 


Printed  in  the  V.   S.  A. 


IA  OR  A  NA! 

This  is  a  simple  record  of  my  days  and  nights,  my 
thoughts  and  dreams,  in  the  mystic  isles  of  the  South 
Seas,  written  without  authority  of  science  or  exactitude 
of  knowledge.  These  are  merely  the  vivid  impressions 
of  my  life  in  Tahiti  and  Moorea,  the  merriest,  most  fas- 
cinating world  of  all  the  cosmos;  of  the  songs  I  sang, 
the  dances  I  danced,  the  men  and  women,  white  and 
tawny,  with  whom  I  was  joyous  or  melancholy;  the  ad- 
ventures at  sea  or  on  the  reef,  upon  the  sapphire  lagoon, 
and  on  the  silver  beaches  of  the  most  beautiful  of  tropics. 

In  this  volume  are  no  discoveries  unless  in  the  heart 
of  the  human.  I  went  to  the  islands  below  the  equator 
with  one  thought — to  play.  All  that  I  have  set  down 
here  is  the  profit  of  that  spirit. 

The  soul  of  man  is  afflicted  by  the  machine  he  has  fash- 
ioned through  the  ages  to  achieve  his  triumph  over  mat- 
ter. In  this  light  chronicle  I  would  offer  the  reader  an 
anodyne  for  a  few  hours,  of  transport  to  the  other  side 
of  our  sphere,  where  are  the  loveliest  scenes  the  eyes  may 
find  upon  the  round  of  the  globe,  the  gentlest  climate 
of  all  the  latitudes,  the  most  whimsical  whites,  and  the 
dearest  savages  I  have  known. 

"Mystic  Isles  of  the  South  Seas"  precedes  in  experi- 
ence my  former  book,  "White  Shadows  in  the  South 


vi  I A  OR  A  NA! 

Seas,"  and  will  be  followed  by  "Atolls  of  the  Sun,s> 
which  will  be  the  account  of  a  visit  to,  and  a  dwelling  on, 
the  blazing  coral  wreaths  of  the  Dangerous  Archipelago, 
wrhere  the  strange  is  commonplace,  and  the  marvel  is  the 
probability  of  the  hour. 

These  three  volumes  will  cover  the  period  I  spent  dur- 
ing three  journeys  with  the  remnants  of  the  most  amaz- 
ing of  uncivilized  races,  whose  discovery  startled  the  old 
world,  and  whom  another  generation  will  cease  to  know. 

TIRARA! 
Maru-tane. 

Kaoha, 

Sausalito,  California. 

In  this  book  the  reader  may  be  tempted  to  stumble  over  some 
foreign  words.  I  have  put  them  in  only  when  necessary,  to  give 
the  color  and  rhythm  of  Tahiti.  The  Tahitian  words  are  very 
easily  pronounced  and  they  are  music  in  the  mouth  of  any  one  who 
sounds  them  properly.  Every  letter  and  syllable  is  pronounced 
plainly.  The  letters  have  the  Latin  value  and  if  one  will  remember 
this  in  reading,  the  Tahitian  words  will  flow  mellifluously.  For 
instance, "  tane  "  is  pronounced"  tah-nay,"  "  maru  "is  pronounced 
"mah-ru."  "Tiare"  is  "tee-ah-ray. "  The  Tahitian  language  is 
dying  fast,  as  are  the  Tahitians.  Its  beauties  are  worth  the  few 
efforts  necessary  for  the  reader  to  scan  them 

»  FREDERICK  O'BRIEN. 


CONTENTS 
CHAPTER   I 

PACK 

Departure  from  San  Francisco — Nature  man  left  behind — 
Fellow-passengers  on  the  Noa-Xoa — Tragedy  of  the 
Chinese  pundit — Strange  stories  of  the  South  Seas — 
The  Tahiti  an  Hula 3 

CHAPTER   II 

The  Discovery  of  Tahiti — Marvelous  isles  and  people — 
Hailed  by  a  wind-jammer — Middle  of  the  voyage — 
Tahiti  on  the  horizon — Ashore  in  Papeete  .  .  18 

CHAPTER   III 

Description  of  Tahiti — A  volcanic  rock  and  coral  reef — 
Beauty  of  the  scenery — Papeete  the  center  of  the 
South  Seas — Appearance  of  the  Tahitians  .  .  35 

CHAPTER   IV 

The  Tiare  Hotel — Lovaina  the  hostess,  the  best-known 
woman  in  the  South  Seas — Her  strange  menage — The 
Dummy — A  one-sided  tryst — An  old-fashioned  cock- 
tail— The  Argentine  training  ship  ...  50 

CHAPTER   V 

The  Pare  de  Bougainville — Ivan  Stroganoff — He  tells  me 
the  history  of  Tahiti — He  berates  the  Tahitians — 
Wants  me  to  start  a  newspaper  ....  75 


viii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  VI 

PAGE 

The  Cercle  Bougainville — Officialdom  in  Tahiti — My  first 
visit  to  the  Bougainville — Skippers  and  merchants — 
A  song  and  a  drink — The  flavor  of  the  South  Seas — 
Rumors  of  war  .......  86 

CHAPTER   VII 

The  Noa-Noa  comes  to  port — Papeete  en  fete — Rare  scene 
at  the  Tiare  Hotel — The  New  Year  celebrated — Ex- 
citement at  the  wharf — Battle  of  the  Limes  and  Coal  108 

CHAPTER  VIII 

Gossip  in  Papeete — Moorea,  a  near-by  island — A  two- 
days'  excursion  there — Magnificent  scenery  from  the 
sea — Island  of  fairy  folk — Landing  and  preparation 
for  the  feast — The  First  Christian  Mission — A  canoe 
on  the  lagoon — Beauties  of  the  sea-garden  .  .127 

CHAPTER  IX 

The  Arearea  in  the  pavilion — Raw  fish  and  baked  feis — 
Llewellyn,  the  Master  of  the  Revel;  Kelly,  the  I.  W.  W. 
and  his  himene — The  Upaupahura — Landers  and 
Mamoe  prove  experts — The  return  to  Papeete  .  .  140 

CHAPTER  X 

The  storm  on  the  lagoon;  making  safe  the  schooners — A  talk 
on  missing  ships — A  singular  coincidence — Arrival  of 
three  of  the  crew  of  the  shipwrecked  El  Dorado — The 
Dutchman's  Story — Easter  Island  ....  158 

CHAPTER  XI 

I  move  to  the  Annexe — Description  of  the  building — The 
baroness  and  her  baby — Evoa  and  Poia — The  corals 
of  the  lagoon — The  Chinese  shrine — The  Tahitiau  sky  191 


CONTENTS  Ix 

CHAPTER   XII 

PAG  a 

The  princess  suggests  a  walk  to  the  falls  of  Fautaua,  where 
Loti  went  with  Rarahu — We  start  in  the  morning — 
The  suburbs  of  Papeete— The  Pool  of  Loti— The 
birds,  trees  and  plants — A  swim  in  a  pool — Arrival 
at  the  cascade — Luncheon  and  a  siesta — We  climb  the 
height — The  princess  tells  of  Tahitian  women — The 
Fashoda  fright 217 

CHAPTER   XIII 

The  beach-combers  of  Papeete — The  consuls  tell  their 
troubles — A  bogus  lord — The  American  boot-blacks 
— The  cowboy  in  the  hospital — Ormsby,  the  super- 
cargo— The  death  of  Tahia — The  Christchurch  Kid 
— The  Nature  men — Ivan  Stroganoff's  desire  for  a 
new  gland  ........  241 

CHAPTER  XIV 

The  market  in  Papeete — Coffee  at  Shin  Bung  Lung's  with 
a  prince — Fish  the  chief  item — Description  of  them 
— The  vegetables  and  fruits — The  fish  strike — 
Rumors  of  an  uprising — Kelly  and  the  I.  W.  W. — 
The  mysterious  session  at  Fa'a — Hallelujah!  I'm  a 
Bum! — the  strike  is  broken  .....  268 

CHAPTER   XV 

A  drive  to  Papenoo — The  chief  of  Papenoo — A  dinner  and 
poker  on  the  bench — Incidents  of  the  game — Break- 
fast the  next  morning — The  chief  tells  his  story — 
The  journey  back — The  leper  child  and  her  doll — The 
Alliance  Franqaise — Bemis  and  his  daughter — The 
band  concert  and  the  fire — The  prize-fight — My  bowl 
of  velvet  293 


x  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  XVI 

PAGE 

A  journey  to  Mataiea — I  abandon  city  life — Interesting 
sights  on  the  route — The  Grotto  of  Maraa — Papara 
and  the  Chief  Tati — The  plantation  of  Atimaono — 
My  host,  the  Chevalier  Tetuanui  ....  324 

CHAPTER  XVII 

My  life  in  the  house  of  Tetuanui — Whence  came  the  Poly- 
nesians— A  migration  from  Malaysia — Their  legends 
of  the  past — Condition  of  Tahiti  when  the  white 
came — The  great  navigator,  Cook — Tetuanui  tells 
of  old  Tahiti 340 

CHAPTER  XVIII 

The  reef  and  the  lagoon — Wonders  of  marine  life — Fish- 
ing with  spears  and  nets — Sponges  and  hermit  crabs 
— Fish  of  many  colors — Ancient  canoes  of  Tahiti — 
A  visit  to  Vaihiria  and  legends  told  there  .  .  .  365 

CHAPTER  XIX 

The  Arioi,  minstrels  of  the  tropics — Lovaina  tells  of  the 
infanticide — Theories  of  depopulation — Methods  of 
the  Arioi — Destroyed  by  missionaries  .  .  .  390 

CHAPTER   XX 

Rupert  Brooke  and  I  discuss  Tahiti — We  go  to  a  wedding 
feast — How  the  cloth  was  spread — WThat  we  ate  and 
drank — A  Gargantuan  feeder — Songs  and  dances 
of  passion — The  royal  feast  at  Tetuanui's — I  leave  for 
Vairao — Butscher  and  the  Lermantoffs  .  .  .410 

CHAPTER  XXI 

A  heathen  temple — The  great  Marae  of  Oberea — I  visit  it 
with  Rupert  Brooke  and  Chief  Tetuanui — The  Tahi- 
tian  religion  of  old — The  wisdom  of  folly  .  .  .  441 


CONTENTS  xi 

CHAPTER  XXII 

PAGE 

I  start  for  Tautira — A  dangerous  adventure  in  a  canoe — 
I  go  by  land  to  Tautira — I  meet  Choti  and  the  Greek 
god — I  take  up  my  home  where  Stevenson  lived  .  456 

CHAPTER   XXIII 

My  life  at  Tautira — The  way  I  cook  my  food — Ancient 
Tahitian  sports — Swimming  and  fishing — A  night 
hunt  for  shrimp  and  eels  .....  473 

CHAPTER  XXIV 

In  the  days  of  Captain  Cook — The  first  Spanish  mission- 
aries— Difficulties  of  converting  the  heathens — Wars 
over  Christianity — Ori-a-Ori,  the  chief,  friend  of 
Stevenson — We  read  the  Bible  together — The  church 
and  the  himene  .......  485 

CHAPTER   XXV 

I  meet  a  sorcerer — Power  over  fire — The  mystery  of  the 
fiery  furnace — The  scene  in  the  forest — Walking  over 
the  white-hot  stones — Origin  of  the  rite  .  .  .  501 

CHAPTER  XXVI 

Farewell  to  Tautira — My  good-bye  feast — Back  at  the 
Tiare — A  talk  with  Lovaina — The  Cercle  Bougain- 
ville— Death  of  David — My  visit  to  the  cemetery — 
Off  for  the  Marquesas  .  .  .  .  .518 


MYSTIC  ISLES 
OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS 


MYSTIC  ISLES 
OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS 

CHAPTER  I 

Departure  from  San  Francisco — Nature  man  left  behind — Fellow-passen- 
gers on  the  yoa-Hfoa — Tragedy  of  the  Chinese  pundit — Strange  stories 
of  the  South  Seas— The  Tahitian  Hula. 

THE  warning  gong  had  sent  all  but  crew  and 
passengers  ashore,  though  our  ship  did  not  leave 
the  dock.  Her  great  bulk  still  lay  along  the 
piling,  though  the  gangway  was  withdrawn.  The 
small  groups  on  the  pier  waited  tensely  for  the  last 
words  with  those  departing.  These  passengers  were 
inwardly  bored  with  the  prolonged  farewells,  and 
wanted  to  be  free  to  observe  their  fellow-voyagers  and 
the  movement  of  the  ship.  They  conversed  in  shouts 
with  those  ashore,  but  most  of  the  meanings  were  lost  in 
the  noise  of  the  shuffling  of  baggage  and  freight,  the 
whistling  of  ferries,  and  the  usual  turmoil  of  the  San 
Francisco  waterfront.  I  was  glad  that  none  had  come 
to  see  me  off,  for  I  was  curious  about  my  unknown 
companions  upon  the  long  traverse  to  the  South  Seas, 
and  I  had  wilfully  put  behind  me  all  that  America  and 
Europe  held  to  adventure  in  the  vasts  of  ocean  below 
the  equator. 

But  the  whistle  I  awaited  to  sound  our  leaving  was 
silent.  Officers  of  the  ship  rushed  about  as  if  bent  on 
relieving  her  of  some  pressing  danger,  and  I  caught 


fragments  of  orders  and  replies  which  indicated  that 
until  a  search  was  completed  she  could  not  stir  on  her 
journey.  Then  I  heard  cries  of  anger  and  protest,  and 
caught  a  glimpse  of  a  man  whose  appearance  provoked 
confusing  emotions  of  astonishment,  admiration,  and 
laughter.  He  was  dressed  in  a  Roman  toga  of  rough 
monk's-cloth,  and  had  on  sandals.  He  was  being 
hustled  bodily  over  the  restored  gangway,  and  was  re- 
sisting valiantly  the  second  officer,  purser,  and  steward, 
who  were  hardly  able  to  move  him,  so  powerfully  was 
he  made.  One  of  his  sandals  suddenly  fell  into  the 
bay.  He  had  seized  hold  of  the  rail  of  the  gangway, 
and  the  leather  sandal  dropped  into  the.  water  with  a 
slight  splash.  His  grasp  of  the  rail  being  broken,  he 
was  gradually  being  pushed,  limping,  to  the  dock.  His 
one  bare  foot  and  his  half-exposed  and  shapely  body 
caused  a  gale  of  laughter  from  the  docks  and  the  wharf. 

The  gangway  was  quickly  withdrawn,  and  our  ship 
began  to  move  from  the  shore.  The  ejected  one  stood 
watching  us  with  sorrow  shadowing  his  large  eyes.  He 
was  of  middle  size,  with  the  form  of  a  David  of  Michel- 
angelo, though  lithe,  and  he  wore  no  hat,  but  had  a  long, 
brown  beard,  which,  with  his  brown  hair,  parted  in  the 
middle  and  falling  over  his  shoulders,  and  his  archaic 
garb,  gave  me  a  singular  shock.  It  was  as  if  a  boyhood 
vision,  or  something  seen  in  a  painting,  was  made  real. 
His  eyes  were  the  deepest  blue,  limpid  and  appealing, 
and  I  felt  like  shouting  out  that  if  it  was  a  matter  of 
money,  I  would  aid  the  man  in  the  toga. 

"Christ!"  yelled  the  frantic  dock  superintendent. 
"Get  that  line  cast  off  and  let  her  go!  Are  you  cee- 
mented  to  that  hooker?" 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  5 

Instantly  before  me  came  Munkacsy's  picture  of  the 
Master  before  Pilate,  evoked  by  the  profanity  of  the 
wharf  boss,  but  explaining  the  vision  of  a  moment  ago. 
The  Noa-Noa  emitted  a  cry  from  her  iron  throat.  The 
engines  started,  and  the  distance  between  our  deck  and 
the  pier  grew  as  our  bow  swung  toward  the  Golden 
Gate.  The  strange  man  who  had  been  put  ashore,  with 
his  one  sandal  in  his  hand,  and  holding  his  torn  toga 
about  him,  hastened  to  the  nearest  stringer  of  the  wharf 
and  waved  good-by  to  us.  It  was  as  if  a  prophet,  or 
even  Saul  of  Tarsus,  blessed  us  in  our  quest.  He  stood 
on  a  tall  group  of  piles,  and  called  out  something  in- 
distinguishable. 

The  passengers  hurried  below,  to  return  in  coats  and 
caps  to  meet  the  wind  that  blows  from  China,  and  the 
second  officer  and  the  surgeon  came  by,  talking  ani- 
matedly. 

"Oh,  yus,"  said  the  seaman,  chuckling,  '  'e  wuz 
'auled  out  finally.  The  beggar  'ad  'id  'imself  good  and 
proper  this  time.  'E  wuz  in  the  linen-closet,  and  'ad 
disguised  'imself  as  a  bundle  o'  bloomin'  barth-towels. 
'E  wuz  a  reg'lar  grand  Turk,  'e  wuz.  Blow  me,  if 
you  'd  'a'  knowed  'im  from  a  bale  of  'em,  'e  wuz  so 
wrapped  up  in  'em.  'E  almost  'ad  us  'ull  down  this 
time.  The  blighter  made  a  bit  of  a  row,  and  said  as  'ow 
he  just  could  n't  'elp  stowin'  aw'y  every  boat  for  T'iti." 

"He 's  a  bally  nut,"  said  the  surgeon.  "I  say, 
though,  he  did  take  me  back  to  Sunday  school." 

I  recalled  a  man  who  walked  the  streets  of  San  Fran- 
cisco carrying  a  small  sign  in  his  upraised  hand,  "Christ 
has  come!"  He  looked  neither  to  the  right  nor  the  left, 
but  bore  his  curious  announcement  among  the  crowds 


6  MYSTIC  ISLES 

downtown,  which  smiled  jestingly  at  him,  or  looked 
frightened  at  the  message.  If  many  had  believed  him, 
the  panic  would  have  been  illimitable.  He  was  dressed 
in  a  brown  cassock,  and  looked  like  the  blue-eyed  man 
who  had  been  refused  passage  to  my  destination. 
Probably,  that  American  in  the  toga  and  sandals,  ex- 
iled from  the  island  he  loved  so  well,  had  a  message  for 
the  Tahitians  or  others  of  the  Polynesian  tribes  of  the 
South  Seas;  Essenism,  maybe,  or  something  to  do  with 
virginal  beards  and  long  hair,  or  sandals  and  the  simple 
life.  I  wished  he  were  with  us. 

We  were  in  the  Golden  Gate  now,  that  magnificent 
opening  in  the  California  shores,  riven  in  the  eternal 
conflict  of  land  and  water,  and  the  rending  of  which 
made  the  bay  of  San  Francisco  the  mightiest  harbor  of 
America.  Before  our  bows  lay  the  immense  expanse  of 
the  mysterious  Pacific. 

The  second  officer  was  directing  sailors  who  were 
snugging  down  the  decks. 

"What  did  the  queer  fellow  want  to  go  to  Tahiti 
for?"  I  asked  him. 

He  regarded  me  a  moment  in  the  stolid  way  of  sea- 
men. 

"The  blighter  likes  to  live  on  bananas  and  breadfruit 
and  that  kind  of  truck,"  he  replied.  "The  French  won't 
let  'im  st'y  there.  'E  's  too  bloomin'  nyked.  'E  's  a 
nyture  man.  They  chysed  'im  out,  and  every  steamer 
'e  tries  to  stow  'imself  aw'y.  'E  's  a  bleedin'  trial  to 
these  ships." 

That  was  puzzling.  Did  not  these  natives  of  Tahiti 
themselves  wear  little  clothing?  Who  were  they  to  ob- 
ject to  a  white  man  doffing  the  superfluities  of  dress 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  7. 

fn  a  climate  where  breadfruit  and  bananas  grow?  Or 
the  French,  the  governors  of  Tahiti?  Were  they,  in 
that  isle  so  distant  from  Paris,  their  capital,  practising 
a  puritanism  unknown  at  home?  Was  nature  so  fear- 
ful? The  figure  of  the  barefooted  man  often  arose  as 
I  watched  the  Farallones  disappear,  the  last  of  land  we 
would  see  until  we  arrived  at  Tahiti,  nearly  two  weeks 
later. 

The  days  fell  away  from  the  calendar ;  they  obliterated 
themselves  as  quietly  as  our  ship's  wake  to  the  north,  as 
we  planed  over  the  smooth  waters  toward  the  equator. 
Gradually  the  passengers  took  on  character,  and  out 
of  the  first  welter  of  contacts  came  those  definite  im- 
pressions which  are  almost  always  right  and  which, 
though  we  modify  them  or  reverse  them  by  acquaint- 
ance, we  return  to  finally. 

There  was  a  Chinese,  the  strangest  figure  of  an  Asi- 
atic, with  a  thin  mustache,  and  wearing  always  a  black 
frock-coat  and  trousers,  elastic  gaiters,  and  a  stiff,  black 
hat.  His  face  was  long  and  oval  and  the  color  of  old 
ivory.  He  had  tried  to  gain  admission  to  Australia 
and  Xew  Zealand,  and  then  the  United  States,  and  had 
been  excluded  under  some  harsh  laws.  He  was  plainly 
a  scholar,  but  had  brought  with  him  from  China  a  store 
of  curios,  probably  to  enable  him  to  earn  money  in  the 
land  of  the  white.  Australia  had  refused  him;  he  had 
been  shut  out  of  San  Francisco,  and  the  very  steamship 
that  brought  him  was  compelled  to  take  him  away.  He 
had  failed  to  bring  a  necessary  certificate,  or  something 
of  the  sort,  and  the  inexorable  laws  of  three  Christian 
countries  had  sent  him  wandering,  so  that  it  was  in- 
evitable he  must  return  to  China  bv  the  route  he  had 


8  MYSTIC  ISLES 

come.  He  was  the  most  mournful  of  sights,  sitting 
most  of  the  day  in  a  retired  spot,  brooding,  apparently 
over  his  fate.  He  never  smiled,  though  I  who  have 
been  much  in  China,  tried  to  stir  him  from  his  sadness 
by  exclamations  and  gestures.  His  race  has  a  very 
keen  sense  of  humor.  They  see  a  thousand  funny 
things  about  them,  and  laugh  inwardly;  but  they  never 
see  anything  amusing  in  themselves.  The  individual 
man  conceives  himself  a  dignified  figure  in  a  world  of 
burlesque. 

This  man's  face  was  rid  of  any  self-pity.  I  think  he 
was  stunned  by  the  horror  of  the  thing,  that  he,  a  man 
of  Chinese  letters,  who  had  departed  from  the  centuried 
custom  of  his  pundit  caste  of  remaining  in  their  own 
country,  who  had  left  his  family  or  clan  to  increase  his 
store  of  lesser  knowledge,  should  be  denied  the  door  by 
these  inferior  nations  of  the  West.  He  might  have  re- 
called Chien  Lung,  a  Manchu  emperor,  who,  when 
apologized  to  in  writing  by  a  Dutch  governor  of  Batavia 
who  had  murdered  almost  all  the  Chinese  there,  replied 
that  China  had  no  interest  in  wretches  who  had  left 
their  native  land.  A  thousand  years  ago  the  Chinese 
put  the  soldier  lowest  in  the  scale  and  the  scholar  high- 
est, with  the  man  of  business  as  of  no  importance.  And 
yet  these  commercial  peoples  barred  their  gates  to  him! 
For  a  number  of  days  he  took  his  place  in  the  shade  of 
a  davited  boat,  and  now  and  again  he  read  from  a  quaint 
book  the  Analects  of  Confucius. 

We  sailed  on  Wednesday,  and  on  Sunday  made  the 
first  tropic,  nearly  twenty-three  and  a  half  degrees 
above  the  line.  No  rough  weather  or  unkindly  wind 
had  disturbed  us  from  the  hour  we  had  left  the  "too 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  9 

nyked"  man  upon  the  wharf,  and  Sunday,  when  I  went 
to  take  my  bath  before  breakfast,  I  felt  the  soft  fingers 
of  the  South  caress  my  body,  and  looking  out  upon  the 
purple  ocean,  whose  expanse  was  barely  dimpled  by 
gleams  of  silver,  I  saw  flying-fish  skimming  the  crests 
of  the  swinging  waves.  The  officers  and  stewards  ap- 
peared in  white;  the  passengers,  too,  put  off  their  tem- 
perate-zone clothes,  and  the  decks  were  gay  with  color. 
We  all  seemed  to  feel  that  we  must  be  in  consonance 
with  the  loving  nature  that  had  made  the  sky  so  blue 
and  the  sea  so  still. 

The  Chinese — he  was  Leung  Kai  Chu  on  the  lis-t — 
did  not  change  his  melancholy  black.  The  deck  sports 
were  organized,  ship  tennis,  quoits,  and  golf,  and  the 
disks  rattled  about  his  feet;  but  though  he  often  moved 
his  chair  to  aid  those  seeking  a  lost  quoit  or  ring,  and 
bowed  ceremoniously  to  those  who  begged  his  pardon 
for  bothering  him,  he  kept  his  position.  I  felt  a  somber 
sense  of  gathering  tragedy.  In  his  face  was  a  growing 
detachment  from  everything  about  him ;  he  hardly  knew 
that  we  were  there,  that  he  ate  and  slept,  and  took  his 
seat  by  the  boat.  All  of  us  felt  this,  but  with  many  it 
meant  merely  remarking  that  "the  Chink  is  getting  off 
his  head,"  and  a  wish  that  he  would  not  obtrude  his 
grief  when  we  were  filled  with  the  joy  of  sunny  skies 
and  a  merry  company. 

The  tragedy  came  sooner  than  expected  by  me.  I 
had  cast  a  thought  to  my  understanding  that  the  phil- 
osophy of  Confucius  did  not  contemplate  self-destruc- 
tion, and  had  been  divided  between  relief  and  wonder 
that  it  was  so. 

It  was  dusk  of  Monday.     The  sun  had  sunk  behind 


10  MYSTIC  ISLES 

the  glowing  rim  of  the  western  horizon,  and  the  air  was 
suffused  with  a  trembling  rose  color,  when  Leung  Kai 
Chu  tapped  at  my  cabin-door,  which  gave  on  the  boat- 
deck.  I  opened  it,  and  he  bowed,  and  handed  me  an 
image.  It  was  of  porcelain,  precious,  and  I  was  at  a 
loss  to  know  whether  he  had  felt  the  need  of  a  little 
money  and  had  brought  it  to  sell,  or  had  been  impelled 
to  give  it  to  me  because  of  my  feeble  efforts  to  cheer 
him.  I  made  a  gesture  which  might  have  meant  pay- 
ment, but  he  raised  his  hand  deprecatingly,  and  for  the 
first  time  I  saw  him  smile,  and  I  was  afraid.  He 
bowed,  and  in  the  mandarin  language  invoked  good  for- 
tune upon  me.  He  had  the  aspect  of  one  beyond  good 
and  evil,  who  had  settled  life's  problem.  When  he  left 
me  I  stood  wondering,  holding  in  my  hands  the  majestic 
god  seated  upon  the  tiger,  the  symbol  of  the  conquest  of 
the  flesh. 

I  heard  a  shout,  and  dropping  the  image,  I  rushed 
aft.  Leung  Kai  Chu  had  thrown  himself  over  the  rail 
just  by  the  purser's  office.  A  steward  had  seen  him 
fling  himself  into  the  white  foam.  I  tore  a  gas-buoy 
from  its  rack  and  tossed  it  toward  the  screw,  in  which 
direction  he  must  have  been  swept.  A  sailor  ran  to  the 
bridge,  the  whistle  blew,  and  the  ship  shook  as  the  en- 
gines ceased  revolving,  and  then  reversed  in  stopping 
her.  Orders  were  flung  about  fast.  A  man  climbed 
to  the  lookout  as  the  first  officer  began  to  put  a  boat  into 
the  water.  The  crew  of  it  and  the  second  officer  were 
already  at  the  oars  and  the  tiller  as  the  ropes  slid  in 
the  blocks.  The  passengers  came  crowding  from  their 
cabins,  where  they  were  dressing  for  dinner,  and  there 
were  many  expressions  of  surprise  and  slight  terror. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  11 

Death  aboard  ship  is  terrible  in  its  imminence  to  all. 
The  buoy,  with  its  flaming  torch,  had  drifted  far  to  lee- 
ward, and  the  lookout  could  do  no  more  than  follow  its 
fainting  light  as  the  dark  of  the  tropics  closed  in.  An 
hour  the  Noa-Noa  lay  gently  heaving  upon  the  mysteri- 
ous waters  in  which  the  despairing  pundit  had  sought 
Xirvana,  until  the  boat  returned  with  a  report  that  it 
had  picked  up  the  buoy,  but  had  seen  no  sign  of  the 
man.  Doubtless  he  had  been  swept  into  the  propellers, 
but  if  not  quickly  given  release  in  their  cyclopean 
strokes,  he  may  have  watched  for  a  few  minutes  our 
vain  attempt  to  negative  his  fate.  If  so,  I  imagine  he 
smiled  again,  as  when  he  gave  me  the  god  upon  the 
tiger. 

As  they  hoisted  the  boat  to  its  davits,  I  found  in  the 
lantern  light  his  ancient  volume,  the  "Analects  of  Confu- 
cius," and  claimed  it  for  my  own.  It  was  the  very  boat 
he  had  been  accustomed  to  sit  under,  and  he  must  have 
laid  down  the  ancient  philosopher  to  procure  the  gift 
for  me,  his  grim  determination  already  made.  I  had 
caught  a  glimpse  of  him  Sunday  morning  listening  to 
the  Christian  services  conducted  by  the  captain  in  the 
social  hall,  and  when  I  told  the  brooding  captain  that, 
he  was  struck  by  the  idea  that  perhaps  some  word  of 
his  preachment  might  have  come  to  Leung  Kai  Chu's 
mind  in  his  agony  in  the  waters,  and  that  at  the  last  mo- 
ment he  might  have  repented  and  been  saved. 

"One  aspiration,  and  he  might  be  washed  as  white  as 
snow.     'This  day  thou  shalt  be  with  Me  in  Paradise/  ' 
said  the  commander,  who  was  known  as  the  parson  skip- 
per, dour,  but  ever  on  the  watch  for  the  first  sign  of 
repentance. 


12  MYSTIC  ISLES 

On  the  other  hand,  Hallman  more  nearly  stated  the 
general  feeling: 

"By  God,  he  spoiled  sport,  that  black  ghost  on  deck. 
He  was  like  a  tupapau,  a  Polynesian  demon." 

Hallman  was  in  his  early  forties,  with  twenty  years 
of  South- Seas  trading,  a  tall,  strong,  well-featured,  but 
hard-faced,  European,  with  thin  lips  over  nearly  perfect 
teeth,  and  cold,  small,  pale-blue  eyes.  He  talked  little 
to  men,  but  isolated  young  women  whenever  possible, 
and  bent  over  them  in  attempted  gay,  but  earnest,  con- 
verse. He  was  one  of  those  cold  sensualists  whose  pas- 
sion is  as  that  of  some  animals,  insistent,  prowling, 
fierce,  but  impersonal.  An  English  South- Sea  trader 
aboard  gave  me  an  astonishing  light  upon  him: 

"Some  dozen  years  ago,"  he  said,  "I  made  a  visit  of 
a  few  weeks  to  the  Marquesas  Islands.  Hallman  had 
kept  a  store  there  then  for  more  than  ten  years,  and  had 
a  good  part  of  the  business  of  buying  and  shipping 
copra  and  selling  supplies  to  the  natives  and  a  few 
whites.  He  lived  in  a  shack  back  of  his  little  store,  with 
his  native  woman  and  four  or  rive  half-naked  children. 
They  told  me  queer  stories  about  his  madness  for 
women.  They  said  he  would  go  out  of  his  house  and 
into  the  jungle  near  the  trails  and  would  lie  in  wait. 
If  a  woman  he  coveted  passed,  he  would  seize  her,  and 
even  if  her  husband  or  consort  was  ahead  of  her,  in  the 
custom  of  these  people,  he  would  grab  her  feet,  and 
make  her  call  out  that  she  was  delaying  a  minute,  that 
her  companion  was  to  go  along,  and  she  would  catch 
up  in  a  minute.  He  had  some  funny  power  over  those 
women.  Anyhow,  that 's  the  story  they  told  me  in  those 
cannibal  islands.  And  yet,  you  know,  there  's  something 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  13 

different  in  him,  because  he  sent  two  of  his  sons  to 
school,  and  afterward  to  a  university  in  Europe.  To 
make  it  queerer  yet,  one  of  them  is  here  on  this  ship,  in 
the  second  class,  and  would  n't  dare  to  speak  to  his 
father  without  being  asked.  Of  course  he  's  a  half- 
Marquesan — the  son — and  looks  it.  I  know  them  all, 
and  only  yesterday  I  heard  Hallman  call  his  son  on  the 
main-deck,  away  from  where  any  one  could  see  him,  and 
threaten  him  with  'putting  him  back  in  the  jungle, 
where  he  came  from,'  if  he  appeared  again  near  the  first- 
class  space.  I  tell  you,  I  'd  hate  to  be  in  his  hands  if  I 
was  in  his  way." 

Fictionists  who  take  the  South  Seas  for  their  scenery 
too  often  paint  their  characters  in  one  tone — black, 
brown,  or  yellow,  or  even  white.  Their  bad  men  are 
super-villains,  and  yet  there  are  no  men  all  bad.  I 
know  there  are  no  supermen  at  all,  bad  or  good,  but  only 
that  some  men  do  super  acts  now  and  then;  none  has 
the  grand  gesture  at  all  times.  Napoleon  had  a  dis- 
graceful affliction  at  Waterloo,  which  rid  him  of 
strength,  mental  and  physical ;  the  thief  on  the  cross  be- 
came wistful  for  an  unknown  delight. 

Hallman  had  said  to  me  in  the  smoking-room  that  he 
never  drank  alcohol  or  smoked  tobacco,  because  "it  took 
the  edge  off  the  game."  Now,  a  poet  might  say  that, 
or  even  a  moralist,  but  he  was  neither. 

That  night  I  walked  through  the  waist  of  the  ship 
and  on  to  the  promenade-deck  of  the  third-class  pas- 
sengers, where  a  huddle  of  stores,  coiled  ropes,  and  riff- 
raff prevented  these  poor  from  taking  any  pleasurable 
exercise.  I  stood  at  the  taffrail  and  peered  down  at 
the  welter  of  white  water,  the  foam  of  the  buffets  of 


14  MYSTIC  ISLES 

the  whirling  screws,  and  then  at  the  wide  wake,  which  in 
imagination  went  on  and  on  in  a  luminous  path  to  the 
place  we  had  departed  from,  to  the  dock  where  we  had 
left  the  debarred  lover  of  nature.  The  deep  was  lit  with 
the  play  of  phosphorescent  animalculse  whom  our  pas- 
sage awoke  in  their  homes  beneath  the  surface  and  sent 
questing  with  lights  for  the  cause.  A  sheet  of  pale, 
green-gold  brilliancy  marked  the  route  of  the  Noa-Xoa 
on  the  brine,  and  perhaps  far  back  the  corpse  of  the 
celestial  philosopher  floated  in  radiancy,  with  his  face 
toward  those  skies,  so  brazen  to  his  desires. 

A  Swiss  with  a  letter  of  introduction  to  me  presented 
it  when  seven  days  out.  It  was  from  the  manager  of 
a  restaurant  in  San  Francisco,  and  asked  me  to  guide 
him  in  any  way  I  could.  The  Swiss  was  middle-aged, 
and  talked  only  of  a  raw  diet.  He  was  to  go  to  the 
Marquesas  to  eat  raw  food.  One  would  have  thought 
a  crude  diet  to  be  in  itself  an  end  in  life.  He  spoke 
of  it  proudly  and  earnestly,  as  if  cooking  one's  edibles 
were  a  crime  or  a  vile  thing.  He  told  me  for  hours  his 
dictums — no  alcohol,  no  tobacco,  no  meat,  no  fish; 
merely  raw  fruit,  nuts,  and  vegetables.  He  was  a  con- 
vinced rebel  against  any  fire  for  food,  making  known 
to  any  one  who  would  listen  that  man  had  erred  sadly, 
thousands  of  years  ago,  in  bringing  fire  into  his  cave  for 
cooking,  and  that  the  only  cure  for  civilization's  evils 
was  in  abolishing  the  kitchen.  He  would  live  in  the 
Marquesas  as  he  said  the  aborigines  do.  Alas!  I  dicj 
not  tell  him  they  ate  only  their  fish  raw. 

Ben  Fuller,  the  Australian  theatrical  manager, 
frowned  on  him.  Fuller  was  as  round  as  a  barrel,  and 
he  also  was  certain  of  the  remedies  for  a  sick  world. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  15 

"How  you  're  goin'  a  get  any  bloody  fun  with  no 
roast  beef,  no  mutton,  no  puddin',  and  let  alone  a  drop 
of  ale  and  a  pipe?" 

The  Swiss  smiled  beatifically. 

"You  can  get  rid  of  all  those  desires,"  he  said. 

"My  Gawd !  I  don't  want  to  get  rid  o'  them,  I  don't. 
I  'm  bringing  up  my  kiddies  right,  and  I  'in  a  proper 
famihT  man,  but  I  want  my  meat  and  my  bread  and  my 
puddin'.  The  world  needs  proper  entertainment; 
that 's  what  '11  cure  the  troubles." 

The  Swiss  was  also  ardent  in  attention  to  the  women 
aboard,  and  I  wondered  if  there  was  a  new  school  of 
self-denial.  The  old  celibate  monks  eschewed  women, 
but  had  Gargantuan  appetites,  which  they  satisfied  with 
meat  pasties,  tubs  of  ale,  and  vats  of  wine. 

There  were  two  Tahitians  aboard,  both  females. 
One  was  an  oldish  woman,  ugly  and  waspish.  She 
counted  her  beads  and  spoke  to  me  in  French  of  the 
consolations  of  the  Catholic  religion.  She  had  been  to 
America  for  an  operation,  but  despaired  of  ever  being 
well,  and  so  was  melancholy  and  devout.  I  talked  to 
her  about  Tahiti,  that  island  which  the  young  Darwin 
wrote,  "must  forever  remain  classical  to  the  voyager  in 
the  South  Seas,"  and  which,  since  I  had  read  "Rarahu" 
as  a  boy,  had  fascinated  me  and  drawn  me  to  it.  She 
warned  me. 

"Prenez-garde  vous,  monsieur!"  she  said.  "There  are 
evils  there,  but  I  am  ashamed  of  my  people." 

The  other  was  about  twenty-two  years  old,  slender, 
kohl-eyed,  and  black-tressed.  She  was  dressed  in  the 
gayest  colors  of  bourgeois  fashion  in  San  Francisco, 
tvith  jade  ear-rings  and  diamond  ornaments.  Her  face 


16  MYSTIC  ISLES 

was  of  a  lemon-cream  hue,  with  dark  shadows  under  her 
long-lashed  eyes.  Her  form  was  singularly  svelt,  curv- 
ing, suggestive  of  the  rounded  stalk  of  a  young  cocoa- 
palm,  her  bosom  molded  in  a  voluptuous  reserve.  Her 
father,  a  clergyman,  had  cornered  the  vanilla-bean 
market  in  Tahiti,  and  she  was  bringing  an  automobile 
and  a  phonograph  to  her  home,  a  village  in  the  middle 
of  Tahiti. 

One  night  when  a  Hawaiian  hula  was  played  on  the 
phonograph,  she  danced  alone  for  us.  It  was  a  grace- 
ful, insinuating  step,  with  movements  of  the  arms  and 
hands,  a  rotating  of  the  torso  upon  the  hips,  and  with  a 
tinge  of  the  savage  in  it  that  excited  the  Swiss,  the  raw- 
food  advocate.  Hallman  was  also  in  the  social  hall, 
and,  after  waltzing  with  her  several  times,  had  per- 
suaded her  to  dance  the  hula.  He  clapped  his  hands 
loudly  and  called  out: 

"Maitair 

That  is  Tahitian  for  bravo,  and  I  saw  a  look  in  Hall- 
man's  face  that  recalled  the  story  by  the  Englishman  of 
the  jungle  trail.  He  was  always  intent  on  his  pur- 
suit. 

Was  I  hypercritical?  There  was  Leung  Kai  Chu 
with  the  sharks,  and  the  nature  man  left  behind!  The 
one  had  lost  his  dream  of  returning  to  Tahiti,  in  which 
the  Chinese  might  freely  have  lived,  and  the  other  had 
thrown  away  life  because  he  could  not  enter  the  America 
that  the  other  wanted  so  madly  to  leave.  The  lack  of 
a  piece  of  paper  had  killed  him.  Was  it  that  happiness 
was  a  delusion  never  to  be  realized?  If  the  pundit  had 
bribed  the  immigration  authorities,  as  I  had  known 
many  to  do,  he  might  now  hnve  been  studying  the 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  17 

strange  religion  and  ethics  which  had  caused  the  whites 
to  steal  so  much  of  China,  to  force  opium  upon  it  at 
the  cannon's  mouth,  to  kill  tens  of  thousands  of  yellow 
men,  and  to  raise  to  dignities  the  soldiers  and  financiers 
whom  he  despised,  as  had  Confucius  and  Buddha. 
And  if  that  white  of  the  sandals  had  kept  his  shirt  on  in 
Tahiti,  he  might  be  lying  under  his  favorite  palm  and 
eating  breadfruit  and  bananas. 

People  have  come  to  be  afraid  to  say  or  even  to  think 
they  are  happy  for  a  bare  hour.  We  fear  that  the  very 
saying  of  it  will  rob  us  of  happiness.  We  have  incan- 
tations to  ward  off  listening  devils — knocking  on  wood, 
throwing  salt  over  our  left  shoulders,  and  saying  "God 
willing." 

What  was  I  to  find  in  Tahiti?  Certainly  not  what 
Loti  had  with  Rarahu,  for  that  was  forty  years  ago, 
when  the  world  was  young  at  heart,  and  romance  was  a 
god  who  might  be  worshiped  with  uncensored  tongue. 
But  was  not  romance  a  spiritual  emanation,  a  state  of 
mind,  and  not  people  or  scenes?  I  knew  it  was,  for  all 
over  the  earth  I  had  pursued  it,  and  found  it  in  the  wild 
flowers  of  the  Sausalito  hills  in  California  more  than 
among  the  gayeties  of  Paris,  the  gorges  of  the  Yang- 
tse-Kiang,  or  in  the  skull  dance  of  the  wild  Dyak  of 
Borneo. 


CHAPTER  II 

The  Discovery  of  Tahiti — Marvelous  isles  and  people — Hailed  by  a  wind- 
jammer— Middle  of  the  voyage — Tahiti  on  the  horizon — Ashore  in 
Papeete. 

"IT  IT  TTEIAT  did  Tahiti  hold  for  me?  I  thought 
%  /\  I  vaguely  of  its  history.  The  world  first 
T  T  knew  its  existence  only  about  the  time  that 
the  American  colonies  were  trying  to  separate  them- 
selves from  Great  Britain.  An  English  naval  captain 
happened  on  the  island,  and  thought  himself  the  first 
white  man  there,  though  the  Spanish  claim  its  discovery. 
The  Englishman  called  it  King  George  Island,  aftei» 
the  noted  Tory  monarch  of  his  day;  but  a  Frenchman 
a  captain  and  poet,  the  very  next  spring  named  it  the 
Xew  Cytherea,  esteeming  its  fascinations  like  the  fabled 
island  of  ancient  Greek  lore.  It  remained  for  Captain 
James  Cook,  who,  before  steam  had  killed  the  wonder  of 
distance  and  the  telegraph  made  daily  bread  of  adven- 
ture and  discovery,  was  the  hero  of  many  a  fireside 
tale,  to  bring  Tahiti  vividly  before  the  mind  of  the 
English  world.  That  hardy  mariner's  entrancing  diary 
fixed  Tahiti  firmly  in  the  thoughts  of  the  British  and 
Americans.  Bougainville  painted  such  an  ecstatic  pic- 
ture that  all  France  would  emigrate.  Cook  set  down 
that  Otaheite  was  the  most  beautiful  of  all  spots  on  the 
surface  of  the  globe.  He  praised  the  people  as  the 
handsomest  and  most  lovable  of  humans,  and  said  they 

18 


MYSTIC  ISLES  19 

wept  when  he  sailed.  That  was  to  him  of  inestimable 
value  in  appraising  them. 

About  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  the 
first  English  missionaries  in  the  South  Seas  thanked 
God  for  a  safe  passage  from  their  homes  to  Tahiti,  and 
for  a  virgin  soil  and  an  affrightingly  wicked  people  to 
labor  with.  The  English,  however,  did  not  seize  the 
island,  but  left  it  for  the  French  to  do  that,  who  first 
declared  it  a  protectorate,  and  made  it  a  colony  of 
France,  in  the  unjust  way  of  the  mighty,  before  the 
last  king  died.  They  had  come  ten  thousand  miles  to 
do  a  wretched  act  that  never  profited  them,  but  had 
killed  a  people. 

All  this  discovery  and  suzerainty  did  not  interest  me 
much,  but  what  the  great  captains,  and  Loti,  Melville, 
Becke,  and  Stoddard,  had  written  had  been  for  years 
my  intense  delight.  Now  I  was  to  realize  the  dream  of 
childhood.  I  could  hardly  live  during  the  days  of  the 
voyage. 

I  remembered  that  Europe  had  been  set  afire  emo- 
tionally by  the  first  reports,  the  logs  of  the  first  cap- 
tains of  England  and  France  who  visited  Tahiti.  In 
that  eighteenth  century,  for  decades  the  return  to  na- 
ture had  been  the  rallying  cry  of  those  who  attacked 
the  artificial  and  degraded  state  of  society.  The  pub- 
lished and  oral  statements  of  the  adventurers  in  Tahiti, 
their  descriptions  of  the  unrivaled  beauty  of  the  verdure, 
of  reefs  and  palm,  of  the  majestic  stature  of  the  men 
and  the  passionate  charm  of  the  women,  the  boundless 
health  and  simple  happiness  in  which  they  dwelt,  the 
climate,  the  limpid  streams,  the  diving,  swimming, 
games,  and  rarest  food — all  these  had  stirred  the  de- 


20  MYSTIC  ISLES 

pressed  Europe  of  the  last  days  of  the  eighteenth  and 
the  first  of  the  nineteenth  centuries  beyond  the  under- 
standing by  us  cynical  and  more  material  people.  The 
world  still  had  its  vision  of  perfection. 

Tahiti  was  the  living  Utopia  of  More,  the  belle  He 
of  Rousseau,  the  Eden  with  no  serpent  or  hurtful  apple, 
the  garden  of  the  Hesperides,  in  harmony  with  nature, 
in  freedom  from  the  galling  bonds  of  government  and 
church,  of  convention  and  clothing.  The  reports  of 
the  English  missionaries  of  the  nakedness  and  ungodli- 
ness of  the  Tahitians  created  intense  interest  and  swelled 
the  chorus  of  applause  for  their  utter  difference  from 
the  weary  Europeans.  Had  there  been  ships  to  take 
them,  thousands  would  have  fled  to  Tahiti  to  be  relieved 
of  the  chains  and  tedium  of  their  existence,  though  they 
could  not  know  that  Victorianism  and  machines  were 
to  fetter  and  vulgarize  them  even  more. 

Afterward,  when  sailors  mutinied  and  abandoned 
their  ships  or  killed  their  officers  to  be  able  to  remain  in 
Tahiti  and  its  sister  islands,  there  grew  up  in  England 
a  literature  of  wanderers,  runagates,  and  beach-comb- 
ers, of  darkish  women  who  knew  no  reserve  or  modesty, 
of  treasure-trove,  of  wrecks  and  desperate  deeds,  piracy 
and  blackbirding,  which  made  flame  the  imagination  of 
the  youth  of  seventy  years  ago.  Tahiti  had  ever  been 
pictured  as  a  refuge  from  a  world  of  suffering,  from 
cold,  hunger,  and  the  necessity  of  labor,  and  most  of 
all  from  the  morals  of  pseudo-Christianity,  and  the 
hypocrisies  and  buffets  attending  their  constant  secret 
infringement. 

One  morning  when  we  were  near  the  middle  of  our 
voyage  I  went  on  deck  to  see  the  sun  rise.  We  were 


21 

that  day  eighteen  hundred  miles  from  Tahiti  and  the 
same  distance  from  San  Francisco,  while  north  and 
west  twelve  hundred  miles  lay  Hawaii.  Not  nearer 
than  there,  four  hundred  leagues  away,  was  succor  if 
our  vessel  failed.  It  was  the  dead  center  of  the  sea. 
I  glanced  at  the  chart  and  noted  the  spot:  Latitude 
10°  N.;  Longitude  137°  W.  The  great  god  Ra  of  the 
Polynesians  had  climbed  above  the  dizzy  edge  of  the 
whirling  earth,  and  was  making  his  gorgeous  course 
into  the  higher  heavens.  The  ocean  was  a  glittering 
blue,  an  intense,  brilliant  azure,  level  save  for  the  slight 
swaying  of  the  surface,  which  every  little  space  showed 
a  flag  of  white.  The  evaporation  caused  by  the  blazing 
sun  of  these  tropics  made  the  water  a  deeper  blue  than 
in  cooler  latitudes,  as  in  the  Arctic  and  Antarctic  oceans 
the  greens  are  almost  as  vivid  as  the  blues  about  the 
line. 

I  watched  the  thousand  flying-fishes'  fast  leaps 
through  the  air,  and  caught  gleams  of  the  swift  bonitos 
whose  pursuit  made  birds  of  their  little  brothers.  Then, 
a  few  miles  off,  I  saw  the  first  vessel  that  had  come  to 
our  eyes  since  we  had  sunk  the  headlands  of  California 
more  than  a  week  before.  She  was  a  great  sailing  ship, 
under  a  cloud  of  snowy  canvas,  one  of  the  caste  of  clip- 
pers that  fast  fades  under  the  pall  of  smoke,  and,  from 
her  route,  bound  for  the  Pacific  Coast  from  Australia. 
The  captain  of  the  Noa-Noa  came  and  stood  beside  me 
as  we  made  her  out  more  plainly,  and  fetching  the 
glasses,  he  glanced  at  her,  started,  and  said  in  some 
surprise: 

"She  's  signaling  us  she  wants  to  send  a  boat  to  us. 
That 's  the  first  time  in  thirty  years  in  this  line  I  have 


22  MYSTIC  ISLES 

ever  had  such  a  request  from  a  wind-jammer.  She  left 
her  slant  to  cross  our  path." 

Half  a  mile  away  a  beautiful,  living  creature,  all 
quivering  with  the  restraint,  she  came  up  into  the  eye 
of  the  wind,  and  backed  her  fore-yard.  A  boat  put  off 
from  her,  and  we  awaited  it  with  indefinable  alarm. 
It  was  soon  at  the  gangway  we  had  hastily  lowered,  un- 
knowing whether  woman  or  child  might  not  be  our  vis- 
itor. It  was  a  young  Russian  sailor  whose  hand  had 
been  crushed  under  a  block  a  fortnight  before,  and  who, 
without  aid  for  his  injury  other  than  the  simple  reme- 
dies that  make  up  the  pharmacopoeia  of  sailing  vessels, 
was  like  to  die  from  blood-poisoning.  Had  our  ship 
not  been  met,  he  would  undoubtedly  have  perished,  for 
no  other  steamer  came  to  these  points  upon  the  chart, 
and,  as  we  were  to  learn,  his  own  ship  did  not  reach  her 
port  for  many  weeks.  He  was  a  mere  boy,  his  face 
was  drawn  with  continued  pain,  but,  with  the  strong 
repression  of  emotion  characteristic  of  the  sailor,  he 
uttered  no  sound.  The  passengers,  relieved  from  silent 
fears  of  any  catastrophe  aboard  the  sailing  ship,  and 
perhaps  salving  their  souls  for  fancied  failure  toward 
the  drowned  Leung  Kai  Chu,  crowded  to  fill  the  boat 
with  books,  fruit,  and  candy,  and  to  help  the  unfor- 
tunate boy.  When  he  had  been  made  comfortable  by 
the  surgeon,  he  was  overwhelmed  with  presents. 

My  vis-a-vis  at  table,  Herr  Gluck,  a  piano  manufac- 
turer of  Munich,  was  a  follower  of  Horace  Fletcher,  the 
American  munching  missionary.  LTnlike  the  Swiss, 
who  craved  raw  food,  Herr  Gluck  ate  everything,  but 
each  mouthful  only  after  thorough  maceration,  saliva- 
tion, and  slow  deglutition.  At  breakfast  he  absorbed  a 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  23 

glass  of  milk  and  a  piece  of  toast,  but  took  longer  than 
I  did  to  bolt  melon,  bacon  and  eggs,  toast,  coffee,  and 
marmalade.  He  sold  the  pianos  his  family  had  made 
for  a  hundred  years,  and  munched  all  about  the  world. 
He  professed  rugged  health,  and  never  tired  of  dancing; 
but  he  looked  drawn  and  melancholy,  and  had  naught  of 
the  rugged  masculinity  of  the  bolters.  Once  or  twice  he 
drank  in  my  company  a  cocktail,  and  he  munched  each 
sip  as  if  it  were  mutton.  He  would  occupy  the  entire 
dinner-time  with  one  baked  potato.  I  was  endeared  to 
him  because  I  had  known  his  master,  Fletcher,  and  with 
him,  too,  had  chewed  a  glass  of  wine  in  the  patio  of  the 
Army  and  Navy  Club  in  Manila.  I  longed  to  pit  the 
Swiss  and  Herr  Gluck  in  argument,  but  in  sober  thought 
had  to  give  the  laurel  to  the  latter,  because,  in  case  of 
stress,  one  might,  with  his  system,  live  on  a  trifle,  while 
raw,  nourishing  food  might  be  difficult  to  get  in  quan- 
tity. 

Most  of  the  passengers  were  Australians  and  Xew- 
Zealanders  returning  home,  and  only  a  few  were  bound 
for  Tahiti — the  Tahitian  women,  the  Swiss,  Hallman 
and  his  son,  and  M.  Leboucher,  a  young  merchant,  born 
there,  of  a  Spanish  mother.  William  McBirney  of 
County  Antrim,  but  long  in  Raratonga,  an  island  two 
days'  steaming  from  Tahiti,  was  going  back  to  his 
adopted  home. 

"Sure,"  he  said,  "I  'm  never  happy  away  from  the 
sound  of  the  surf  on  the  reef  and  the  swish  of  the  cocoa- 
nuts.  I  was  fourteen  years  in  the  British  army  in  Eng- 
land when  I  made  up  my  mind  to  quit  civilization.  I 
put  it  to  the  missus,  a  London  woman,  and  she  was  for 
it.  I  Ve  had  nearly  ten  years  now  in  the  Cook  group. 


24  MYSTIC  ISLES 

D  'ye  know,  I  Ve  learned  one  thing — that  money  means 
very  little  in  life.  Why,  in  Aitutaki  you  can't  sell  fish. 
The  law  forbids  it,  but  do  you  suppose  people  don't  fish 
on  that  account  ?  Why,  a  man  goes  out  in  his  canoe  and 
fishes  like  mad.  He  brings  in  his  canoe,  and  as  he  ap- 
proaches the  beach  he  's  blowing  his  pu,  the  conch-shell, 
to  let  people  know  he  has  fish.  Fish  to  sell  or  to  barter? 
Not  at  all.  He  wants  the  honor  of  giving  them  away. 
Now,  if  he  makes  a  big  catch,  do  you  see,  he  has  renown. 
People  say,  'There  's  Taiere,  who  caught  all  those  fish 
yesterday.'  That 's  worth  more  to  him  than  money. 
But  if  he  could  sell  those  fish,  if  there  was  competition, 
only  the  small-minded,  the  business  souls,  would  fish. 
I  'm  not  a  socialist,  but  Aitutaki  shows  that,  released 
from  the  gain,  man  will  serve  his  fellows  for  their  plau- 
dits. And,  mind  you,  no  person  took  more  fish  than  he 
needed.  There  was  no  greed." 

"That's  rot!"  broke  in  Hallman,  who  entered  the 
smoking-room.  "The  natives  are  frauds.  You  Ve  got 
to  kick  'em  around  or  bribe  'em  to  do  any  work. 
Have  n't  I  lived  with  'em  twenty  years  ?  They  're 
swine." 

"It  depends  on  what  you  bring  them  and  what  you 
seek,"  said  McBirney.  "Ah,  well,  it 's  getting  too  civ- 
ilized in  Raratonga.  There  's  an  automobile  threaten- 
ing to  come  there,  though  you  could  drive  around  the 
island  in  half  an  hour.  And  they  're  teaching  the  Ma- 
oris English.  I  must  get  away  to  the  west'ard  soon. 
It 's  a  fact  there  are  two  laws  for  every  inhabitant." 

Would  I,  too,  "go  native"?  Become  enamored  of 
those  simple,  primitive  places  and  wajrs,  and  want  to 
keep  going  westward?  Would  I,  too,  fish  to  be  hon- 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  25 

ored  for  my  string?  Would  I  go  to  the  Dangerous 
Archipelago,  those  mystic  atolls  that  sent  to  the  Em- 
press Eugenie  that  magnificent  necklace  of  pearls  she 
wore  at  the  great  ball  at  the  Tuileries  when  the  foolish 
Xapoleon  made  up  his  mind  to  emulate  his  great  name- 
sake and  make  war?  Would  I  there  see  those  divers 
who  are  said  to  surpass  all  the  mermen  of  legend  in  the 
depths  they  go  in  their  coral-studded  lagoons  in  search 
of  the  jewels  that  hide  in  gold-lipped  shells?  Was  it 
for  me  to  wander  among  those  fabulous  coral  isles  flung 
for  a  thousand  miles  upon  the  sapphire  sea,  like  wreaths 
of  lilies  upon  a  magic  lake? 

The  doldrums  brought  rain  before  the  southeast  wind 
came  to  urge  us  faster  on  our  course  and  to  clear  the 
skies.  Xow  we  were  in  the  deep  tropics,  five  or  six 
hundred  miles  farther  south  than  Honolulu,  and  plung- 
ing toward  the  imaginary  circle  which  is  the  magic  ring 
of  the  men  who  steer  ships  in  all  oceans.  Our  breeze 
was  that  they  pray  for  when  the  wind  alone  must  drive 
the  towering  trees  of  -canvas  toward  Australia  from 
America. 

The  breeze  held  on  while  games  of  the  formal  tourna- 
ments progressed,  and  prizes  were  won  by  the  young 
and  the  spry. 

One  night  I  came  on  deck  when  the  moon  had  risen 
an  hour,  and  saw  as  strange  and  beautiful  a  sight  as  ever 
made  me  sigh  for  the  lack  of  numbers  in  my  soul.  A 
huge,  long,  black  cloud  hung  pendent  from  midway  in 
the  sky,  with  its  lower  part  resting  on  the  sea.  It  was 
for  all  the  world  of  marvels  like  a  great  dragon,  shaped 
rudely  to  a  semblance  of  the  beast  of  the  Apocalypse, 
and  with  its  head  lifted  into  the  ether,  so  that  it  was 


26  MYSTIC  ISLES 

framed  against  the  heavens.  The  moon  was  in  its 
mouth;  the  moon  shaped  like  an  eye,  a  brilliant,  glow- 
ing, wondrous  orb,  more  intensely  golden  for  its  con- 
trast with  the  ominous  blackness  of  the  serpentine  cloud. 
I  felt  that  I  had  found  the  origin  of  the  Oriental  fable. 
Some  minutes  the  illusion  held,  and  then  the  cloud  low- 
ered, and  the  moon,  alone  against  a  pale-blue  back- 
ground, the  horizon  a  mass  of  scudding  draperies  of 
pearly  hue,  lit  the  ocean  between  the  ship  and  the  edge 
of  the  world  in  a  tremulous  and  mellow  gilded  path. 

There  was  dancing  on  the  boat-deck,  the  Lydian 
measures  of  the  Hawaiian  love-songs,  those  passionate 
melodies  in  which  Polynesian  pearls  have  been  strung 
on  European  filaments,  filling  the  balmy  air  with  quiv- 
ering notes  of  desire,  and  causing  dancers  to  hold  closer 
their  partners.  The  Occident  seemed  very  far  away; 
even  older  people  felt  the  charm  of  clime  that  had  come 
upon  them,  and  laughter  rang  as  stories  ran  about  the 
group  in  the  reclining-chairs. 

The  captain,  though  grim  from  a  gripping  religion 
that  had  squeezed  all  joy  from  his  scripture-haunted 
soul,  added  an  anecdote  to  the  entertainment. 

"Passing  from  Fiji  to  Samoa,"  he  said,  "I  had  to 
leave  the  mail  at  Niuafou,  in  the  Tongan  Islands.  It  is 
a  tiny  isle,  three  miles  long  by  as  wide,  an  old  crater  in 
which  is  a  lagoon,  hot  springs,  -and  every  sign  of  the 
devastation  of  many  eruptions.  The  mail  for  Niuafou 
was  often  only  a  single  letter  and  a  few  newspapers. 
We  sealed  them  in  a  tin  can,  and  when  we  met  the  post- 
master at  sea,  we  threw  it  over.  He  would  be  three 
miles  out,  swimming,  with  a  small  log  under  arm  for 
support,  and  often  he  might  be  in  company  with  thirty 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  27 

or  forty  of  his  tribe,  who,  with  only  the  same  slight  aids 
to  keeping  afloat,  would  be  fishing  leisurely.  They  car- 
ried their  tackle  and  their  catch  upon  their  shoulders, 
and  appeared  quite  at  ease,  with  no  concern  for  their 
long  swim  to  shore  or  for  the  sharks,  which  were  plenti- 
ful. They  might  even  nap  a  little  during  the  middle 
afternoon." 

"When  our  people  wanted  to  sleep  at  sea,"  said  Mc- 
Birney,  "if  there  were  two  of  them,  though  we  never 
bothered  to  take  along  logs,  one  rested  on  the  other's 
shoulder." 

One  listened  and  marveled,  and  smiled  to  think  that, 
had  one  stayed  at  home,  one  might  never  know  these 
things.  Forgotten  was  the  wraith  of  Leung  Kai  Chu, 
the  jungle  trail  of  Hallman,  and  even  the  trepidation 
with  which  we  had  awaited  the  sailing  ship's  boat.  I 
was  soon  to  be  in  those  enchanted  archipelagoes,  and  to 
see  for  myself  those  mighty  swimmers  and  those  sleep- 
ers upon  the  sea.  I  might  even  get  a  letter  through 
that  floating  postmaster. 

There  was  a  Continental  duchess  aboard,  whom  I 
pitied.  She  was  oldish  and  homely,  and  could  n't  for- 
get her  rank.  She  had  a  woman  companion,  an  honor- 
able lady,  a  maid,  and  a  courier,  but  she  sat  all  day  knit- 
ting or  reading  poor  novels.  She  had  nothing  to  do 
with  the  other  passengers,  eating  with  her  companion  at 
an  aloof  table,  and  sitting  before  her  own  cabin,  apart 
from  others.  The  courier  and  I  talked  several  times, 
and  once  he  said  that  her  Highness  was  much  interested 
in  a  statement  I  had  made  about  the  origin  of  the  Maori 
race,  but  she  did  not  invite  me  to  tell  her  my  opinion 
directly.  Poor  wretch!  as  Pepys  used  to  say,  she  was 


28  MYSTIC  ISLES 

entangled  in  her  own  regal  web,  and  sterilized  by  her 
Continental  caste. 

For  days  and  nights  we  moved  through  the  calm  sea, 
with  hardly  more  than  the  sparkling  crests  of  the  myriad 
swelling  waves  to  distinguish  from  a  bounded  lake  these 
mighty  waters  that  wash  the  newest  and  oldest  of  lands. 
It  seemed  as  if  all  the  world  was  only  water  and  us. 
The  ship  was  as  steady  in  her  element  as  a  plane  in  those 
upper  strata  of  the  ether  where  the  winds  and  clouds  no 
longer  have  domain.  The  company  in  a  week  had 
found  themselves,  and  divided  into  groups  in  which  each 
sought  protection  from  boredom,  ease  of  familiar  man- 
ners, and  opportunity  to  talk  or  to  listen. 

Often  when  all  had  left  the  deck  I  sat  alone  in  the 
passage  before  the  surgeon's  cabin  to  drink  in  the  cool- 
ness of  the  dark,  and  to  wonder  at  the  problem  of  life. 
If  a  man  had  not  his  dream,  what  could  life  give  him? 
In  his  heart  he  might  know  by  experience  that  it  never 
could  come  true,  but  without  it,  false  as  it  might  be,  he 
was  without  consolation. 

One  night,  the  equator  behind,  I  saw  the  Southern 
Cross  for  the  first  time  on  the  voyage,  its  glittering  crux, 
with  the  alpha  and  beta  Centaur  stars,  signaling  to  me 
that  I  was  beyond  the  dispensation  of  the  cold  and  con- 
stant north  star,  and  in  the  realm  of  warmth  and  ever- 
changing  beauty. 

Tahiti,  the  second  Sunday  out,  was  a  day  off.  I 
arose  Monday  with  a  feeling  of  buoyancy  and  expec- 
tancy that  grew  with  the  morning.  I  was  as  one  who 
looks  to  find  soon  in  reality  the  ideal  on  earth  his  fancy 
has  created.  The  day  became  older,  and  the  noontide 
passed.  I  had  gone  forward  upon  the  forecastle  head 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  29 

to  seize  the  first  sign  of  land,  and  was  leaning  over 
the  cathead,  watching  the  flying-fish  leaping  in  advance 
of  the  bow,  and  the  great,  shining  albacore  throwing 
themselves  into  the  rush  of  our  advance,  to  be  carried 
along  by  the  mere  drive  of  our  bows. 

I  drew  a  deep  breath  of  the  salt  air  when  there  came 
to  me  a  new  and  delicious  odor.  It  seemed  to  steal 
from  a  secret  garden  under  the  sea,  and  I  thought  of 
mermaids  plucking  the  blossoms  of  their  coral  arbors 
for  the  perfuming  and  adornment  of  their  golden  hair. 
But  sweeter  and  heavier  it  floated  upon  the  slight 
breeze,  and  I  knew  it  for  the  famed  zephyr  that  carries 
to  the  voyager  to  Tahiti  the  scents  of  the  flowers  of  that 
idyllic  land.  It  was  the  life  vapor  of  the  hinano,  the 
tiare  and  the  frangipani  exhaled  by  those  flowers  of  Ta- 
hiti, to  be  wafted  to  the  sailor  before  he  sights  the  scene 
itself,  the  breath  of  Lorelei  that  spelled  the  sense  of  the 
voyager.  No  shipwrecked  mariner  could  have  felt 
more  poignancy  in  his  search  for  a  hospitable  strand 
than  I  on  the  plunging  prow  of  the  Noa-Noa  in  my 
quest  through  the  bright  sunshine  of  that  afternoon  for 
the  haven  of  desire.  I  strained  my  eyes  to  see  it,  to 
realize  the  gossamer  dream  I  had  spun  since  boyhood 
from  the  leaves  of  beloved  poets. 

It  was  shortly  after  three  o'clock  that  the  vision  came 
in  reality,  more  marvelous,  more  exquisite,  more  un- 
imaginable than  the  conception  of  all  my  reveries — a 
dim  shadow  in  the  far  offing,  a  dark  speck  in  the  lofty 
clouds,  a  mass  of  towering  green  upon  the  blue  water, 
the  fast  unfoldment  of  emerald,  pale  hills  and  glittering 
reef.  Nearer  as  sailed  our  ship,  the  panorama  was 
lovelier.  It  was  the  culmination  of  enchantment,  the 


30  MYSTIC  ISLES 

fulfilment  of  the  wildest  fantasy  of  wondrous  color, 
strange  form,  and  lavish  adornment. 

The  island  rose  in  changing  shape  from  the  soft  Pa- 
cific sea,  here  sheer  and  challenging,  there  sloping 
gently  from  mountain  height  to  ocean  sheen;  different 
all  about,  altering  with  hiding  sun  or  shifting  view  its 
magic  mold,  with  moods  as  varied  as  the  wind,  but  ever 
lovely,  alluring,  new. 

I  marked  the  volcanic  make  of  it,  cast  up  from  the 
low  bed  of  Neptune  an  eon  ago,  its  loftiest  peaks  peer- 
ing from  the  long  cloud-streamers  a  mile  and  a  half 
above  my  eyes,  and  its  valleys  embracing  caverns  of 
shadow.  It  was  a  stupendous  precipice  suspended 
from  the  vault  of  heaven,  and  in  its  massive  folds  se- 
creted the  wonders  I  had  come  so  far  to  see.  Every 
minute  the  bewildering  contours  were  transmuted  by 
the  play  of  sun  and  cloud  and  our  swift  progression 
toward  the  land. 

Red  spots  appeared  rare  against  the  field  of  verdure 
where  the  mountain-side  had  been  stripped  naked  by 
erosion,  and  the  volcanic  cinnabar  of  ages  contrasted 
oddly  with  the  many  greens  of  frond  and  palm  and  hill- 
side grove.  Curious,  fantastic,  the  hanging  peaks  and 
cloud-capped  scarps,  black  against  the  fleecy  drift,  were 
tauntingly  reminiscent  of  the  evening  skies  of  the  last 
few  days,  as  if  the  divine  artist  had  sketched  lightly 
upon  the  azure  of  the  heavens  the  entrancing  picture  to 
be  drawn  firmly  and  grandly  in  beetling  crag  and  sub- 
lime steep. 

Most  of  all,  as  the  island  swam  closer,  the  embracing 
fringe  of  cocoanut-trees  drew  my  eyes.  They  were  like 
a  girdle  upon  the  beautiful  body  of  the  land,  whose 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  31 

lower  half  was  in  the  ocean.  They  seemed  the  free- 
waving  banners  of  romance,  whispering  always  of  nude 
peoples,  of  savage  whites,  of  ruthless  passion,  of  rum 
and  missionaries,  cannibals  and  heathen  altars,  of  the 
fierce  struggle  of  the  artificial  and  the  primitive.  I 
loved  these  palms,  brothers  of  my  soul,  and  for  me  they 
have  never  lost  their  romantic  significance. 

From  the  sea,  the  village  of  Papeete,  the  capital  and 
port,  was  all  but  hidden  in  the  wood  of  many  kinds  of 
trees  that  lies  between  the  beach  and  the  hills.  Red  and 
gray  roofs  appeared  among  the  mass  of  growing  things 
at  almost  the  same  height,  for  the  capital  rested  on  only 
a  narrow  shelf  of  rising  land,  and  the  mountains  de- 
scended from  the  sky  to  the  very  water's-edge. 
Greener  than  the  Barbadoes,  like  malachite  upon  the 
dazzling  Spanish  Main,  Tahiti  gleamed  as  a  promise  of 
Elysium. 

A  lighthouse,  tall  minister  of  warning,  lifted  upon  a 
headland,  and  suddenly  there  was  disclosed  intimately 
the  brilliant,  shimmering  surf  breaking  on  the  tortuous 
coral  reef  that  banded  the  island  a  mile  away.  It  was 
like  a  circlet  of  quicksilver  in  the  sun,  a  quivering,  shin- 
ing, waving  wreath.  Soon  we  heard  the  eternal  dia- 
pason of  these  shores,  the  constant  and  immortal  music 
of  the  breakers  on  the  white  stone  barrier,  a  low,  deep, 
resonant  note  that  lulls  the  soul  to  sleep  by  day  as  it  does 
the  body  by  night. 

Guardian  sound  of  the  South  Seas  it  is,  the  hushed, 
echoic  roar  of  a  Jovian  organ  that  chants  of  the  dangers 
of  the  sea  without,  and  the  peace  of  the  lagoon  within, 
the  reef. 

A  stretch  of  houses   showed — the  warehouses   and 


32 

shops  of  the  merchants  along  the  beach,  the  spire  of  a 
church,  a  line  of  wharf,  a  hundred  tiny  homes  all  but 
hidden  in  the  foliage  of  the  ferns.  These  gradually 
came  into  view  as  the  ship,  after  skirting  along  the  reef, 
steered  through  a  break  in  the  foam,  a  pass  in  the 
treacherous  coral,  and  glided  through  opalescent  and 
glassy  shallows  to  a  quay  where  all  Papeete  waited  to 
greet  us. 

The  quay  was  filled  with  women  and  men  and  chil- 
dren and  dogs.  Carriages  and  automobiles  by  the  score 
attended  just  outside.  Conspicuous  above  all  were  the 
Tahitian  and  part-Tahitian  girls.  In  their  long,  grace- 
ful, waistless  tunics  of  brilliant  hues,  their  woven  bam- 
boo or  pandanus  hats,  decorated  with  fresh  flowers,  their 
feet  bare  or  thrust  into  French  slippers,  their  brown 
eyes  shining  with  yearning,  they  were  so  many  Circes 
to  us  from  the  sea.  They  smiled  and  looked  with  long- 
ing at  these  strangers,  who  felt  curious  thrills  at  this 
unknown  openness  of  promise. 

Louis  de  Bougainville  wrote  in  his  diary  at  his  first 
coming  to  Tahiti  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago : 

The  boats  were  now  crowded  with  women,  whose  beauty  of 
face  was  equal  to  that  of  the  ladies  of  Europe,  and  the  sym- 
metry of  their  forms  much  superior. 

Leboucher  called  to  his  mother.  "Madre  mia! 
Como  estas  tu?" 

Cries  rang  out  in  French,  in  Tahitian  and  in  English. 
Islanders,  returning,  demanded  information  as  to 
health,  business  ventures,  happenings.  Merry  laughter 
echoed  from  the  roof  of  the  great  shed,  and  I  felt  my 
heart  suddenly  become  joyous. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  33 

The  girls  and  women  absorbed  the  attention  of 
passengers  not  of  Tahiti.  The  Xew-Zealanders  of  the 
crew  called  excitedly  to  various  ones.  Most  of  the  men 
passengers,  tarrying  only  with  the  vessel,  planned  to 
see  a  hula,  and  they  wondered  if  any  of  those  on  the 
wharf  were  the  dancers. 

A  white  flower  over  the  ear  seemed  a  favorite  adorn- 
ment, some  wearing  it  on  one  side  and  some  on  the 
other.  What  struck  one  immediately  was  the  erect  car- 
riage of  the  women.  They  were  tall  and  as  straight  as 
sunflower-stalks,  walking  with  a  swimming  gait.  They 
were  graceful  even  when  old.  Those  dark  women  and 
men  seemed  to  fit  in  perfectly  with  the  marvelous  back- 
ground of  the  cocoas,  the  bananas  and  the  brilliant 
foliage.  The  whites  appeared  sickly,  uncouth,  beside 
the  natives,  and  the  white  women,  especially,  faded  and 
artificial. 

The  Noa-Xoa  was  warped  to  the  wharf,  and  I  was 
within  a  few  feet  now  of  the  welcoming  crowd  and  could 
discern  every  detail. 

Those  young  women  were  well  called  les  belles  Ta- 
hitiennes.  Their  skins  were  like  pale-brown  satin,  but 
exceeding  all  their  other  charms  were  their  lustrous 
eyes.  They  were  very  large,  liquid,  melting,  and  in- 
describably feminine — feminine  in  a  way  lost  to  Occi- 
dental women  save  only  the  Andalusians  and  the  Nea- 
politans. They  were  framed  in  the  longest,  blackest, 
curly  lashes,  the  lashes  of  dark  Caucasian  children. 
They  were  the  eyes  of  children  of  the  sun,  eyes  that  had 
stirred  disciplined  seamen  to  desertion,  eyes  that  had 
burned  ships,  and  created  the  mystery  of  the  Bounty, 
eyes  of  enchantresses  of  the  days  of  Helen. 


34  MYSTIC  ISLES 

"Prenez-garde  vous!"  said  Madame  Aubert,  the  in- 
valid, in  my  ear. 

Mixed  now  with  the  perfumes  of  the  flowers  was  the 
odor  of  cocoanuts,  coming  from  the  piles  of  copra  on 
the  dock,  a  sweetish,  oily  smell,  rich,  powerful,  and 
never  in  foreign  lands  to  be  inhaled  without  its  bringing 
vividly  before  one  scenes  of  the  tropics. 

The  gangway  was  let  down.  I  was,  after  years  of 
anticipation,  in  Tahiti. 


CHAPTER  III 

Description  of  Tahiti — A  volcanic  rock  and  coral  reef — Beauty  of  the  Scen- 
ery— Papeete  the  center  of  the  South  Seas — Appearance  of  the  Ta- 
hitians. 

TAHITI  was  a  molten  rock,  fused  in  a  subter- 
ranean furnace,  and  cast  in  some  frightful  throe 
of  the  cooling  sphere,  high  up  above  the  surface 
of  the  sea,  the  seething  mass  forming  into  mountains 
and  valleys,  the  valleys  hemmed  in  except  at  their 
mouths  by  lofty  barriers  that  stretch  from  thundering 
central  ridges  to  the  slanting  shelf  of  alluvial  soil  which 
extends  to  the  sand  of  the  beach.  It  is  a  mass  of  vol- 
canic matter  to  which  the  air,  the  rain,  and  the  passage 
of  a  million  years  have  given  an  all-covering  verdure 
except  upon  the  loftiest  peaks,  have  cut  into  strangely 
shaped  cliffs,  sloping  hills,  spacious  vales,  and  shadowy 
glens  and  dingles,  and  have  poured  down  the  rich  detri- 
tus and  humus  to  cover  the  coral  beaches  and  afford  sus- 
tenance for  man  and  beast.  About  the  island  countless 
trillions  of  tiny  animals  have  reared  the  shimmering  reef 
which  bears  the  brunt  of  the  breaking  seas,  and  spares 
their  impact  upon  the  precious  land.  These  minute  be- 
ings in  the  unfathomable  scheme  of  the  Will  had  worked 
and  perished  for  unguessed  ages  to  leave  behind  this 
monument  of  their  existence,  their  charnel-house.  Man 
had  often  told  himself  that  a  god  had  inspired  them  thus 
to  build  havens  for  his  vessels  and  abodes  of  marine  life 

35 


36  MYSTIC  ISLES 

where  man  might  kill  lesser  beings  for  his  food  and 
sport. 

Always,  in  the  approach  to  the  island  in  steamship, 
schooner,  or  canoe,  one  is  amazed  and  transported  by 
the  varying  aspect  of  it.  A  few  miles  away  one  would 
never  know  that  man  had  touched  it.  His  inappreci- 
able structures  are  erased  by  the  flood  of  green  color, 
which,  from  the  edge  of  the  lagoon  to  the  spires  of  La 
Diademe,  nearly  eight  thousand  feet  above  the  water, 
makes  all  other  hues  insignificant.  In  all  its  hundred 
miles  or  so  of  circumference  nature  is  the  dominant  note 
— a  nature  so  mysterious,  so  powerful,  and  yet  so  soft- 
handed,  so  beauty-loving  and  so  laughing  in  its  indul- 
gences, that  one  can  hardly  believe  it  the  same  that 
rules  the  Northern  climes  and  forces  man  to  labor  in 
pain  all  his  days  or  to  die. 

The  scene  from  a  little  distance  is  as  primeval  as  when 
the  first  humans  climbed  in  their  frail  canoes  through 
the  unknown  and  terrible  stretches  of  ocean,  and  saw 
Tahiti  shining  in  the  sunlight.  A  mile  or  two  from  the 
lagoon  the  fertile  land  extends  as  a  slowly-ascending 
gamut  of  greens  as  luxuriant  as  a  jungle,  and  forming 
a  most  pleasing  foreground  to  the  startling  amphithe- 
ater of  the  mountains,  darker,  and,  in  storm,  black  and 
forbidding. 

Those  mountains  are  the  most  wonderful  examples  of 
volcanic  rock  on  the  globe.  Formed  of  rough  and  crys- 
talline products  of  the  basic  fire  of  earth,  they  hold  high 
up  in  their  recesses  coral  beds  once  under  the  sea,  and 
lava  in  many  shapes,  tokens  of  the  island's  rise  from  the 
slime,  and  of  mammoth  craters  now  almost  entirely 
obliterated  by  denudation — the  denudation  which  made 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  37 

the  level  land  as  fertile  as  any  on  earth,  and  the  suit- 
able habitation  of  the  most  leisurely  and  magnificent 
human  animals  of  history. 

A  thousand  rills  that  drink  from  the  clouds  ever  en- 
circling the  crags,  and  in  which  they  are  often  lost  from 
view,  leap  from  the  heights,  appearing  as  ribbons  of 
white  on  a  clear  day,  and  not  seldom  disappearing  in 
vapor  as  they  fall  sheer  hundreds  of  feet,  or  thousands, 
in  successive  drops.  When  heavy  rains  come,  torrents 
suddenly  spring  into  being  and  dash  madly  down  the 
precipitous  cliffs  to  swell  the  brooks  and  little  rivers 
and  rush  headlong  to  the  sea. 

Tahiti  has  an  unexcelled  climate  for  the  tropics,  the 
temperature  for  the  year  averaging  seventy-seven  de- 
grees and  varying  from  sixty-nine  to  eighty-four  de- 
grees. June,  July,  and  August  are  the  coolest  and 
driest  months,  and  December  to  March  the  rainiest  and 
hottest.  It  is  often  humid,  enervating,  but  the  south- 
east, the  trade-wind,  which  blows  regularly  on  the  east 
side  of  the  islands,  where  are  Papeete  and  most  of  the 
settlements,  purifies  the  atmosphere,  and  there  are  no 
epidemics  except  when  disease  is  brought  directly  from 
the  cities  of  America  or  Australasia.  A  delicious 
breeze  comes  up  every  morning  at  nine  o'clock  and  fans 
the  dweller  in  this  real  Arcadia  until  past  four,  when  it 
languishes  and  ceases  in  preparation  for  the  vesper 
drama  of  the  sun's  retirement  from  the  stage  of  earth. 

Typhoons  or  cyclones  are  rare  about  Tahiti,  but 
squalls  are  frequent  and  tidal  waves  recurrent.  The 
rain  falls  more  than  a  hundred  days  a  year,  but  usually 
so  lightly  that  one  thinks  of  it  as  liquid  sunshine.  In 
the  wet  quarter  from  December  until  March  there  are 


38  MYSTIC  ISLES 

almost  daily  deluges,  when  the  air  seems  turned  to 
water,  the  land  and  sea  are  hidden  by  the  screen  of 
driving  rain,  and  the  thunder  shakes  the  flimsy  houses, 
and  echoes  menacingly  in  the  upper  valleys. 

Papeete,  the  seat  of  government  and  trade  capital  of 
all  the  French  possessions  in  these  parts  of  the  world, 
is  a  sprawling  village  stretching  lazily  from  the  river 
of  Fautaua  on  the  east  to  the  cemetery  on  the  west, 
and  from  the  sea  on  the  north  to  half  a  mile  inland.  It 
is  the  gradual  increment  of  garden  and  house  upon  an 
aboriginal  village,  the  slow  response  of  a  century  to  the 
demand  of  official  and  trading  white,  of  religious  group 
and  ambitious  Tahitian,  of  sailor  and  tourist.  Here 
flow  all  the  channels  of  business  and  finance,  of  plotting 
and  robbery,  of  pleasure  and  profit,  of  literature  and  art 
and  good  living,  in  the  eastern  Pacific.  Papeete  is  the 
London  and  Paris  of  this  part  of  the  peaceful  ocean, 
dispensing  the  styles  and  comforts,  the  inventions  and 
luxuries,  of  civilization,  making  the  laws  and  enforcing 
or  compromising  them,  giving  justice  and  injustice  to 
litigants,  despatching  all  the  concomitants  of  modernity 
to  littler  islands.  Papeete  is  the  entrepot  of  all  the 
archipelagoes  in  these  seas. 

The  French,  who  have  domination  in  these  waters  of 
a  hundred  islands  and  atolls  between  8°  and  27°  south 
latitude,  and  between  137°  and  154°  west  longitude,  a 
stretch  of  about  twelve  hundred  miles  each  way,  make 
them  all  tributary  to  Papeete;  and  thus  it  is  the  me- 
tropolis of  a  province  of  salt  water,  over  which  come  its 
couriers  and  its  freighters,  its  governors  and  its  soldiers, 
its  pleasure-seekers  and  its  idlers.  From  it  an  age  ago 
went  the  Maoris  to  people  Hawaii  and  New  Zealand. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  39 

Papeete  has  a  central  position  in  the  Pacific.  The 
capitals  of  Hawaii,  Australia,  New  Zealand,  and  Cali- 
fornia are  from  two  and  a  half  to  three  and  a  half  thou- 
sand miles  away.  No  other  such  group  of  whites,  or 
place  approaching  its  urbanity,  is  to  be  found  in  a  vast 
extent  of  latitude  or  longitude.  It  is  without  peer  or 
competitor  in  endless  leagues  of  waves. 

Yet  Papeete  is  a  little  place,  a  mile  or  so  in  length  and 
less  in  width,  a  curious  imposition  of  European  houses 
and  manners  upon  a  Tahitian  hamlet,  hybrid,  a  mixture 
of  loveliness  and  ugliness,  of  nature  savage  and  tamed. 
The  settlement,  as  with  all  ports,  began  at  the  water- 
front, and  the  harbor  of  Papeete  is  a  lake  within  the 
milky  reef,  the  gentle  waters  of  which  touch  a  strip  of 
green  that  runs  along  the  shore,  broken  here  and  there 
by  a  wall  and  by  the  quay  at  which  I  landed.  Coral 
blocks  have  been  quarried  from  the  reef  and  fitted  to 
make  an  embankment  for  half  a  mile,  which  juts  out 
just  far  enough  to  be  usable  as  a  mole.  It  is  alongside 
this  that  sailing  vessels  lie,  the  wharf  being  the  only  land 
mooring  with  a  roof  for  the  housing  of  products.  A 
dozen  schooners,  small  and  large,  point  their  noses  out 
to  the  sea,  their  backs  against  the  coral  quay,  and  their 
hawsers  made  fast  to  old  cannon,  brought  here  to  war 
against  the  natives,  and  now  binding  the  messengers  of 
the  nations  and  of  commerce  to  this  shore.  Where  there 
are  no  embankments,  the  water  comes  up  to  the  roots  of 
the  trees,  and  a  carpet  of  grass,  moss,  and  tropical  vege- 
tation grows  from  the  salt  tide  to  the  roadway. 

Following  the  contour  of  the  beach,  runs  a  fairly 
broad  road,  and  facing  this  original  thoroughfare  and 
the  sea  are  the  principal  shops  of  the  traders  and  a  few 


40 

residences.  French  are  some  of  these  merchants,  but 
most  are  Australasian,  German,  American  and  Chinese. 
France  is  ten  thousand  miles  away,  and  the  French  un- 
equal in  the  struggle  for  gain.  Some  of  the  stores  oc- 
cupy blocks,  and  in  them  one  will  find  a  limited  assort- 
ment of  tobacco,  anchors,  needles,  music-boxes,  candles, 
bicycles,  rum,  novels,  and  silks  or  calicos.  Here  in  this 
spot  was  the  first  settlement  of  the  preachers  of  the 
gospel,  of  the  conquering  forces  of  France,  and  of  the 
roaring  blades  who  brought  the  culture  of  the  world  to- 
a  powerful  and  spellbound  paople.  Here  swarmed  the 
crews  of  fifty  whalers  in  the  days  when  "There  she 
blows!"  was  heard  from  crows'-nests  all  over  the  broad 
Pacific.  These  rough  adventurers,  fighters,  revelers,, 
passionate  bachelors,  stamped  Tahiti  with  its  first 
strong  imprint  of  the  white  man's  modes  and  vices,  con- 
tending with  the  missionaries  for  supremacy  of  ideaL 
They  brought  gin  and  a  new  lecherousness  and  deadly 
ills  and  novel  superstitions,  and  found  a  people  ready 
for  their  wares.  An  old  American  woman  has  told  me 
she  has  seen  a  thousand  whalemen  at  one  time  ashore  off 
ships  in  the  harbor  make  night  and  day  a  Saturnalia  of 
Occidental  pleasure,  a  hundred  fights  in  twenty-four 
hours. 

As  more  of  Europe  and  America  came  and  brought 
lumber  to  build  houses,  or  used  the  hard  woods  of  the 
mountains,  the  settlement  pushed  back  from  the  beach. 
Trails  that  later  widened  into  streets  were  cut  through 
the  brush  to  reach  these  homes  of  whites,  and  the 
thatched  huts  of  the  aborigines  were  replaced  by  the 
ugly,  but  more  convenient,  cottages  of  the  new-comers. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  41 

The  French,  when  once  they  had  seized  the  island,  made 
roads,  gradually  and  not  too  well,  but  far  surpassing 
those  of  most  outlying  possessions,  and  contrasting  ad- 
vantageously with  the  neglect  of  the  Spanish,  who  in 
three  hundred  years  in  the  Philippines  left  all  undone 
the  most  important  step  in  civilization.  One  can  drive 
almost  completely  around  Tahiti  on  ninety  miles  of  a 
highway  passable  at  most  times  of  the  year,  and  bridg- 
ing a  hundred  times  the  streams  which  rush  and  purl 
and  wind  from  the  heights  to  the  ocean. 

The  streets  of  Papeete  have  no  plan.  They  go  where 
they  list  and  in  curves  and  angles,  and  only  once  in  a 
mile  in  short,  straight  stretches.  They  twist  and  stray 
north  and  south  and  nor'nor'west  and  eastsou'east,  as  if 
each  new-comer  had  cleft  a  walk  of  his  own,  caring 
naught  for  any  one  else,  and  further  dwellers  had 
smoothed  it  on  for  themselves. 

I  lost  myself  in  a  maze  of  streets,  looked  about  for 
a  familiar  landmark,  strolled  a  hundred  paces,  and 
found  myself  somewhere  I  thought  a  kilometer  distant. 
Everywhere  there  are  shops  kept  by  Chinese,  restau- 
rants and  coffee-houses.  The  streets  all  have  names, 
but  change  them  as  they  progress,  honoring  some 
French  hero  or  statesman  for  a  block  or  two,  recalling 
some  event,  or  plainly  stating  the  reason  for  their  be- 
ing. All  names  are  in  French,  of  course,  and  many 
are  quaint  and  sonorous. 

As  the  sea-wall  grew  according  to  the  demands  of 
defense  or  commerce  the  sections  were  rechristened. 
The  quai  des  Subsistances  tells  its  purpose  as  does  the 
quai  de  1'Uranie.  The  rue  de  1'Ecole  and  the  rue  de 


42  MYSTIC  ISLES 

la  Mission,  with  the  rue  des  Rempaits,  speak  the  early 
building  of  school  and  Catholic  church  and  fortifica- 
tions. 

Rue  Cook,  rue  de  Bougainville  and  many  others 
record  the  giant  figures  of  history  who  took  Tahiti  from 
the  mist  of  the  half-known,  and  wrote  it  on  the  charts 
and  in  the  archives.  Other  streets  hark  back  to  that 
beloved  France  to  which  these  French  exiles  gaze  with 
tearful  eyes,  but  linger  all  their  years  ten  thousand  miles 
away.  They  saunter  along  the  rue  de  Rivoli  in  Pa- 
peete, and  see  again  the  magnificence  of  the  Tuileries, 
and  hear  the  dear  noises  of  la  belle  Paris.  They  are 
sentimental,  these  French,  patriots  all  here,  and  over- 
come at  times  by  the  flood  of  memories  of  la  France, 
their  birthplaces,  and  their  ancestral  graves.  Some 
born  here  have  never  been  away,  and  some  have  spent 
a  few  short  months  in  visits  to  the  homeland.  Some 
have  brown  mothers,  half-islanders;  yet  if  they  learn 
the  tripping  tongue  of  their  French  progenitor  and 
European  manners,  they  think  of  France  as  their  ulti- 
mate goal,  of  Paris  their  playground,  and  the  "Mar- 
seillaise" their  Inmene  par  excellence. 

One  might  conjure  up  a  vision  of  a  tiny  Paris  with 
such  names  in  one's  ears,  and  these  French,  who  have 
been  in  possession  here  nearly  four-score  years,  have 
tried  to  make  a  French  town  of  Papeete. 

They  have  only  spoiled  the  scene  as  far  as  unfit  archi- 
tecture can,  but  the  riot  of  tropical  nature  has  mocked 
their  labors.  For  all  over  the  flimsy  wooden  houses, 
the  wretched  palings,  the  galvanized  iron  roofing,  the 
ugly  verandas,  hang  gorgeous  draperies  of  the  giant 
acacias,  the  brilliant  flamboyantes,  the  bountiful,  yellow 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  43 

allamanda,  the  generous  breadfruit,  and  the  uplifting 
glory  of  the  cocoanut-trees,  while  magnificent  vines  and 
creepers  cover  the  tawdry  paint  of  the  fa9ades  and  em- 
bower the  homes  in  green  and  flower.  If  one  leaves  the 
few  principal  streets  or  roads  in  Papeete,  one  walks  only 
on  well-worn  trails  through  the  thick  growth  of 
lantana,  guavas,  pandanus,  wild  coffee,  and  a  dozen 
other  trees  and  bushes.  The  paths  are  lined  with 
hedges  of  false  coffee,  where  thrifty  people  live,  and 
again  there  are  open  spaces  with  vistas  of  little  houses 
in  groves,  rows  of  tiny  cabins  close  together.  Every- 
where are  picturesque  disorder,  dirt,  rubbish,  and  the 
accrued  wallow  of  years  of  laissez-aller;  but  the  mighty 
trade-winds  and  the  constant  rains  sweep  away  all  bad 
odors,  and  there  is  no  resultant  disease. 

"My  word,"  said  Stevens,  a  London  stockbroker, 
here  to  rehabilitate  a  broken  corporation,  "if  we  Eng- 
lish had  this  place,  would  n't  there  be  a  cleaning  up  1 
We  'd  build  it  solid  and  sanitary,  and  have  proper  rules 
to  make  the  bally  natives  stand  around." 

The  practical  British  would  that.  They  have  done 
so  in  a  dozen  of  their  far-flung  colonies  I  have  been  in, 
from  Singapore  to  Barbadoes,  though  they  have  failed 
utterly  in  Jamaica.  Yet,  I  am  at  first  sight,  of  the  mind 
that  only  the  Spanish  would  have  kept,  after  decades  of 
administration,  as  much  of  the  simple  beauty  of  Papeete 
as  have  the  Gauls.  True,  the  streets  are  a  litter,  the 
Government  almost  unseen  as  to  modern  uplift,  the  na- 
tives are  indolent  and  life  moves  without  bustle  or  goal. 
The  republic  is  content  to  keep  the  peace,  to  sell  its 
wares,  to  teach  its  tongue,  and  to  let  the  gentle  Ta- 
hitian  hold  to  his  island  ways,  now  that  his  race  dies 


44  MYSTIC  ISLES 

rapidly  in  the  spiritual  atmosphere  so  murderous  to 
natural,  non-immunized  souls  and  bodies. 

Many  streets  and  roads  are  shaded  by  spreading 
mango-trees,  a  fruit  brought  in  the  sixties  from  Brazil, 
and  perfected  in  size  and  flavor  here  by  the  patient  ef- 
forts of  French  gardeners  and  priests.  The  trees  along 
the  town  ways  are  splendid,  umbrageous  masses  of  dark 
foliage  whose  golden  crops  fall  upon  the  roadways,  and 
which  have  been  so  chosen  that  though  they  are  seasonal, 
the  round  mango  is  succeeded  by  the  golden  egg,  and 
that  by  a  small  purple  sort,  while  the  large,  long  variety 
continues  most  of  the  year.  Monseigneur  Jaussen,  the 
Catholic  bishop  who  wrote  the  accepted  grammar  and 
dictionary  of  the  Tahitian  language,  evolved  a  delicious, 
large  mango,  with  a  long,  thin  stone  very  different  from 
the  usual  seed,  which  occupies  most  of  the  circumference 
of  this  slightly  acidulous,  most  luscious  of  tropical 
fruits.  Often  the  pave  is  a  spatter  of  the  fallen  man- 
gos, its  slippery  condition  of  no  import  to  the  bare- 
footed Tahitian,  but  to  the  shod  a  cause  of  sudden, 
strange  gyrations  and  gestures,  and  of  irreverence  to- 
ward the  Deity. 

Scores  of  varieties  of  fruits  and  flowers,  shade-trees, 
and  ornamental  plants  were  brought  to  Tahiti  by  ship 
commanders,  missionaries,  officials,  and  traders,  in  the 
last  hundred  years,  while  many  of  the  indigenous 
growths  have  been  transplanted  to  other  islands  and 
continents  by  those  whose  interests  were  in  them.  The 
Mutiny  of  the  Bounty,  perhaps  the  most  romantic  in- 
cident of  these  South  Seas,  was  the  result  of  an  effort 
to  transport  breadfruit-tree  shoots  from  Tahiti  to  the 
West  Indies.  It  is  a  beautiful  trait  in  humankind, 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  45 

which,  maybe,  designing  nature  has  endowed  us  with  to 
spread  her  manifold  creations,  that  even  the  most  selfish 
of  men  delight  in  planting  in  new  environments  exotic 
seeds  and  plants,  and  in  enriching  the  fauna  of  far- 
away islands  with  strange  animals  and  insects.  The 
pepper-  and  the  gum-tree  that  make  southern  Cali- 
fornia's desert  a  bower,  the  oranges  and  lemons  there 
which  send  a  million  golden  trophies  to  less-favored  peo- 
ples, are  the  flora  of  distant  climes.  Since  the  days  of 
the  white  discoverers,  adventurers  and  priests,  fighting 
men  and  puritans,  have  added  to  the  earth's  treasury  in 
Tahiti  and  all  these  islands. 

Walking  one  morning  along  the  waterfront,  I  met 
two  very  dark  negresses.  They  had  on  pink  and  black 
dresses,  with  red  cotton  shawls,  and  they  wore  flaming 
yellow  handkerchiefs  about  their  woolly  heads.  They 
were  as  African  as  the  Congo,  and  as  strange  in  this 
setting  as  Eskimos  on  Broadway.  They  felt  their  im- 
portance, for  they  were  of  the  few  good  cooks  of  French 
dishes  here.  They  spoke  a  French  patois,  and  guf- 
fawed loudly  when  one  dropped  her  basket  of  supplies 
from  her  head.  They  were  servants  of  the  procureur 
de  la  Republique,  who  had  brought  them  from  the 
French  colony  of  Martinique. 

Many  races  have  mingled  here.  One  saw  their  pig- 
ments and  their  lines  in  the  castes;  here  a  soupfon  of 
the  French  and  there  a  touch  of  the  Dane;  the  Chileno, 
himself  a  mestizo,  had  left  his  print  in  delicacy  of  fea- 
ture, and  the  Irish  his  freckles  and  pug,  which  with 
tawny  skin,  pearly  teeth,  and  the  superb  form  of  the 
pure  Tahitian,  left  little  to  be  desired  in  fetching  and 
saucy  allurement.  Thousands  of  sailors  and  merchants 


46  MYSTIC  ISLES 

and  preachers  had  sowed  their  seed  here,  as  did  Captain 
Cook's  men  a  century  and  a  half  ago,  and  the  harvest 
showed  in  numerous  shadings  of  colors  and  variety  of 
mixtures.  Tahiti  had,  since  ship  of  Europe  sighted 
Orofena,  been  a  pasture  for  the  wild  asses  of  the  Wan- 
derlust, a  paradise  into  which  they  had  brought  their 
snakes  and  left  them  to  plague  the  natives. 

There  were  phonographs  shrieking  at  one  from  a 
score  of  verandas.  The  automobile  had  become  a  men- 
ace to  life  and  limb.  There  were  two-score  motor-cars 
in  Tahiti;  but  as  the  island  is  small,  and  most  of  them 
were  in  the  capital,  one  met  them  all  the  day,  and  might 
have  thought  there  were  hundreds.  Motor-buses,  or 
"rubberneck-wagons,"  ran  about  the  city,  carrying  the 
natives  for  a  franc  on  a  brief  tour,  and,  for  more,  to 
country  districts  where  good  cheer  and  dances  sped  the 
night.  A  dozen  five-  and  seven-passenger  cars  with 
drivers  were  for  hire.  Most  nights  until  eleven  or  later 
the  rented  machines  dashed  about  the  narrow  streets, 
hooting  and  hissing,  while  their  care-free  occupants 
played  accordions  or  mouth-organs  and  sang  songs  of 
love.  Louis  de  Bougainville,  once  a  French  lawyer, 
and  afterward  soldier,  sailor,  and  discoverer  and  a  lord 
under  Bonaparte,  had  a  monument  in  a  tiny  green  park 
hard  by  the  strand  and  the  road  that,  beginning  there, 
bands  the  island.  He  is  best  known  the  world  about 
because  his  name  is  given  to  the  "four-o'clock"  shrub  in 
warm  countries,  as  in  Tahiti,  which  sends  huge  masses 
of  magenta  or  crimson  blossoms  climbing  on  trellises 
and  roofs.  I  walked  to  this  monument  from  the  Tiare 
along  the  mossy  bank  of  a  little  rivulet  which  ran  to  the 
beach.  It  was  early  morning.  The  humble  natives 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  47 

and  whites  were  about  their  daily  tasks.  Smoke  rose 
from  the  iron  pipes  above  the  houses,  coffee  scented  the 
air,  men  and  women  were  returning  from  the  market- 
place with  bunches  of  cocoanuts,  bananas,  and  bread- 
fruit, strings  of  fish  and  cuts  of  meat  in  papers.  Many 
of  them  had  their  heads  wreathed  in  flowers  or  wore  a 
tiare  blossom  over  an  ear. 

The  way  in  which  one  wears  a  flower  supposedly  sig- 
nifies many  things.  If  one  wore  it  over  the  left  ear,  one 
sought  a  sweetheart;  if  over  the  right,  it  signified  con- 
tentment, and  though  it  was  as  common  as  the  wearing 
of  hats,  there  were  always  jokes  passing  about  these 
flowers,  exclamations  of  surprise  or  wishes  of  joy. 

"What,  you  have  left  Terii?" 

"Aita.     No." 

" Aue!     I  must  change  it  at  once." 

Now,  really  there  was  no  such  idea  in  the  native  mind. 
It  was  invention  for  tourists.  The  Tahitian  wears 
flowers  anywhere,  always,  if  he  can  have  them,  and  they 
do  express  his  mood.  If  he  is  sad,  he  will  not  put  them 
on ;  but  if  going  to  a  dance,  to  a  picnic,  or  to  promenade, 
if  he  has  money  in  his  pocket,  or  gaiety  in  his  heart,  he 
must  bloom.  Over  one  ear,  or  both,  in  the  hair,  on  the 
head,  around  the  neck,  both  sexes  were  passionately 
fond  of  this  age-old  sign  of  kinship  with  nature.  The 
lei  in  Hawaii  around  the  hat  or  the  neck  spells  the  same 
meaning,  but  the  flood  of  outsiders  has  lost  Hawaii  all 
but  the  merest  remnant  of  its  ancient  ways,  while  here 
still  persisted  customs  which  a  century  of  European  dif- 
ference and  indifference  has  not  crushed  out.  Here,  as 
there,  more  lasting  wreaths  for  the  hat  were  woven  of 
shells  or  beads  in  various  colors. 


48  MYSTIC  ISLES 

As  I  strolled  past  the  houses,  every  one  greeted  me 
pleasantly. 

"la  ora  na"  they  said,  or  "Bonjour!"  I  replied  in 
kind.  I  had  not  been  a  day  in  Tahiti  before  I  felt  kin- 
dled in  me  an  affection  for  its  dark  people  which  I  had 
never  known  for  any  other  race.  It  was  an  admixture 
of  friendship,  admiration,  and  pity — of  affection  for 
their  beautiful  natures,  of  appreciation  of  the  magnifi- 
cence of  their  physical  equipment,  and  of  sympathy  for 
them  in  their  decline  and  inevitable  passing  under  the 
changed  conditions  of  environment  made  by  the  sudden 
smothering  of  their  instinctive  needs  in  the  sepia  of  com- 
mercial civilization.  I  saw  that  those  natives  remain- 
ing, laughing  and  full  of  the  desire  for  pleasure  as  they 
were,  must  perish  because  unfit  to  survive  in  the  morass 
of  modernism  in  which  they  were  sinking,  victims  of  a 
system  of  life  in  which  material  profits  were  the  sole 
goal  and  standard  of  the  rulers. 

The  Tahitians  are  tall,  vigorous,  and  superbly 
rounded.  The  men,  often  more  than  six  feet  or  even 
six  and  a  half  feet  in  height,  have  a  mien  of  natural 
majesty  and  bodily  grace.  They  convey  an  impression 
of  giant  strength,  reserve  power,  and  unconscious  poise 
beyond  that  made  by  any  other  race.  American  In- 
dians I  have  known  had  much  of  this  quality  when  resi- 
dent far  from  towns,  but  they  lacked  the  curving,  pad- 
ded muscles,  the  ease  of  movement,  and,  most  of  all,  the 
smiling  faces,  the  ingratiating  manner,  of  these  children 
of  the  sun. 

The  Tahitians'  noses  are  fairly  flat  and  large;  the 
nostrils  dilated;  their  lips  full  and  sensual;  their  teeth 
perfectly  shaped  and  very  white  and  sound;  their  chins 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  49 

strong,  though  round ;  and  their  eyes  black  and  large,  not 
brilliant,  but  liquid.  Their  feet  and  hands  are  mighty 
— hands  that  lift  burdens  of  great  weight,  that  swing 
paddles  of  canoes  for  hours ;  feet  that  tread  the  roads  or 
mountain  trails  for  league  on  league. 

The  women  are  of  middle  size,  with  lines  of  harmony 
that  give  them  a  unique  seal  of  beauty,  with  an  un- 
dulating movement  of  their  bodies,  a  coordination  of 
every  muscle  and  nerve,  a  richness  of  aspect  in  color 
and  form,  that  is  more  sensuous,  more  attractive,  than 
any  feminine  graces  I  have  ever  gazed  on.  They  have 
the  forwardness  of  boys,  the  boldness  of  huntresses,  yet 
the  softness  and  magnetism  of  the  most  virginal  of  their 
white  sisters.  One  thinks  of  them  as  of  old  in  soft 
draperies  of  beautiful  cream-colored  native  cloth  wound 
around  their  bodies,  passed  under  one  arm  and  knotted 
on  the  other  shoulder,  revealing  the  shapely  neck  and 
arm,  and  one  breast,  with  garlands  upon  their  hair,  and 
a  fragrant  flower  passed  through  one  ear,  and  in  the 
other  two  or  three  large  pearls  fastened  with  braided 
human  hair. 

The  men  never  wore  beards,  though  mustaches,  copy- 
ing the  French  custom,  are  common  on  chiefs,  preach- 
ers, and  those  who  sacrifice  beauty  and  natural  desires 
to  ambition.  The  hair  on  the  face  is  removed  as  it  ap- 
pears, and  it  is  scanty.  They  abhor  beards,  and  their 
ghosts,  the  tupapau,  have  faces  fringed  with  hair.  The 
usual  movements  of  both  men  and  women  are  slow, 
dignified,  and  full  of  pride. 


CHAPTER  IV 

The  Tiare  Hotel — Lovaina  the  hostess,  the  best-known  woman  in  the  South 
Seas — Her  strange  menage — The  Dummy — A  one-sided  tryst — An  old- 
fashioned  cocktail — The  Argentine  training  ship. 

THE  Tiare  Hotel  was  the  center  of  English- 
speaking  life  in  Papeete.  Almost  all  tourists 
stayed  there,  and  most  of  the  white  residents 
other  than  the  French  took  meals  there.  The  usual 
traveler  spent  most  of  his  time  in  and  about  the  hotel, 
and  from  it  made  his  trips  to  the  country  districts  or  to 
other  islands.  Except  for  two  small  restaurants  kept 
by  Europeans,  the  Tiare  was  the  only  eating-place  in 
the  capital  of  Tahiti  unless  one  counted  a  score  of  dis- 
mal coffee-shops  kept  by  Chinese,  and  frequented  by 
natives,  sailors,  and  beach-combers.  They  were  dark, 
disagreeable  recesses,  with  grimy  tables  and  forbidding 
utensils,  in  which  wretchedly  made  coffee  was  served 
with  a  roll  for  a  few  sous;  one  of  them  also  offered 
meats  of  a  questionable  kind. 

The  Tiare  Hotel  was  five  minutes'  walk  from  the 
quay,  at  the  junction  of  the  rue  de  Rivoli  and  the  rue 
de  Petit  Pologne,  close  by  Pont  du  Remparts.  It  was 
a  one-storied  cottage,  with  broad  verandas,  half  hidden 
in  a  luxuriant  garden  at  the  point  where  two  streets 
come  together  at  a  little  stone  bridge  crossing  a  brook— 
a  tiny  bungalow  built  for  a  home,  and  stretched  and 
pieced  out  to  make  a  guest-house. 

I  was  at  home  there  after  a  few  days  as  if  I  had 
known  no  other  dwelling.     That  is  a  distinctive  and 

50 


MYSTIC  ISLES  51 

compelling  charm  of  Tahiti,  the  quick  possession  of  the 
new-comer  by  his  environment,  and  his  unconscious 
yielding  to  the  demands  of  his  novel  surroundings,  op- 
posite as  they  might  be  to  his  previous  habitat. 

Very  soon  I  was  filled  with  the  languor  of  these  isles. 
I  hardly  stirred  from  my  living-place.  The  bustle  of 
the  monthly  steamship-day  died  with  the  going  of  the 
j\roa-Noa,  the  through  passengers  departing  in  angry 
mood  because  their  anticipated  hula  dance  had  been  a 
disappointment — wickedness  shining  feebly  through 
cotton  gowns  when  they  had  expected  nudity  in  a  pas 
seul  of  abandonment.  There  was  a  violent  condemna- 
tion by  the  duped  men  of  "unwarranted  interference  by 
the  French  Government  with  natural  and  national  ex- 
pression." 

Hogg,  an  American  business  traveler,  said  "The  Bar- 
bary  Coast  in  Frisco  had  Tahiti  skinned  a  mile  for  the 
real  thing,"  and  Stevens,  a  London  broker,  that  the 
dance  was  "bally  tame  for  four  bob." 

Papeete,  with  the  passing  throng  gone,  was  a  quiet 
little  town,  contrasting  with  the  hours  when  the  streets 
swarmed  with  people  from  here  and  the  suburbs,  the 
band  playing,  the  bars  crowded,  and  all  efforts  for 
gaiety  and  coquetry  and  the  selling  of  souvenirs  and 
intoxicants.  What  exotic  life  there  was  beyond  the 
clubs,  the  waterfront,  and  the  Asiatic  quarter  revolved 
around  the  Tiare,  and  entirely  so  because  of  its  pro- 
prietress, Lovaina.  She  was  the  best-known  and  best- 
liked  woman  in  all  these  South  Seas,  remembered  from 
Australia  to  the  Paumotus,  from  London  to  China, 
wherever  were  people  who  had  visited  Tahiti,  as  "dear 
old  Lovaina." 


52  MYSTIC  ISLES 

She  was  very  large.  She  was  huge  in  every  sense, 
weighing  much  more  than  three  hundred  pounds,  and 
yet  there  was  a  singular  grace  in  her  form  and  her  move- 
ments. Her  limbs  were  of  the  girth  of  breadfruit-trees, 
and  her  bosom  was  as  broad  and  deep  as  that  of  the 
great  Juno  of  Rome,  but  her  hands  were  beautiful,  like 
a  plump  baby's,  with  fascinating  creases  at  the  wrists, 
and  long,  tapering  fingers.  Her  large  eyes  were  hazel, 
and  they  were  very  brilliant  when  she  was  merry  or  ex- 
cited. Her  expansive  face  had  no  lines  in  it,  and  her 
mouth  was  a  perfection  of  curves,  the  teeth  white  and 
even.  Her  hair  was  red-brown,  curling  in  rich  profu- 
sion, scented  with  the  hinano-flower,  adorning  her 
charmingly  poised  head  in  careless  grace. 

When  she  said,  "I  glad  see  you,"  there  was  a  glow 
of  amiability,  an  alluring  light  in  her  countenance,  that 
drew  one  irresistibly  to  her,  and  her  immense,  shapely 
hand  enveloped  one's  own  with  a  pressure  and  a  warmth 
that  were  overpowering  in  their  convincement  of  her 
good  heart  and  illimitable  generosity. 

Lovaina  was  only  one  fourth  Tahitian,  all  the  remain- 
der of  her  racial  inheritance  being  American;  but  she 
was  all  Tahitian  in  her  traits,  her  simplicity,  her  devo- 
tion to  her  friends,  her  catching  folly  as  it  flew,  and  her 
pride  in  a  new  possession. 

One  morning  I  got  up  at  five  o'clock  and  went  to  the 
bath  beside  the  kitchen.  It  was  a  shower,  and  the  water 
from  the  far  Fautaua  valley  the  softest,  most  delicious 
to  the  body,  cool  and  balmy  in  the  heat  of  the  tropic. 
Coming  and  going  to  baths  here,  whites  throw  off  easily 
the  fear  of  being  thought  immodest,  and  women  and 
men  alike  go  to  and  fro  in  loin-cloths,  pajamas,  or 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  53 

towels.  I  wore  the  pareu,  the  red  strip  of  calico,  bear- 
ing designs  by  William  Morris,  which  the  native  buys 
instead  of  his  original  one  of  tapa,  the  beaten  cloth 
made  from  tree  bark  or  pith. 

I  met  Lovaina  coming  out  of  the  shower,  a  sheet 
about  her  which  could  not  cover  half  of  her  immense 
and  regal  body.  She  hesitated — I  was  almost  a 
stranger, — and  in  a  vain  effort  to  do  better,  trod  on  the 
sheet,  and  pulled  it  to  her  feet.  I  picked  it  up  for  her. 

"I  shamed  for  you  see  me  like  this!"  she  said. 

I  was  blushing  all  over,  though  why  I  don't  know, 
but  I  faltered: 

"Like  a  great  American  Beauty  rose." 

"Faded  rose  too  big,"  exclaimed  Lovaina,  with  the 
faintest  air  of  coquetry  as  I  hastily  shut  the  door. 

A  little  while  later,  when  I  came  to  the  dining-room 
for  the  first  breakfast,  I  met  Lovaina  in  a  blue-figured 
aohu  of  muslin  and  lace,  a  close-fitting,  sweeping  night- 
gown, the  single  garment  that  Tahitians  wear  all  day 
and  take  off  at  night,  a  tunic,  or  Mother  Hubbard, 
which  reveals  their  figures  without  disguise,  unstayed, 
unpetticoated.  Lovaina  was,  as  always,  barefooted, 
and  she  took  me  into  her  garden,  one  of  the  few  cul- 
tivated in  Tahiti,  where  nature  makes  man  almost  super- 
fluous in  the  decoration  of  the  earth. 

"This  house  my  father  give  me  when  marry,"  said  Lo- 
vaina. "My  God!  you  just  should  seen  that  arearca! 
Las'  all  day,  mos'  night.  We  jus'  move  in.  Ban's 
playin'  from  war-ship,  all  merry  drinkin',  dancin'. 
Xever  such  good  time.  I  tell  you  nobody  could  walk 
barefoot  one  week,  so  much  broken  glass  in  garden  an' 
street." 


54  MYSTIC  ISLES 

Her  goodly  flesh  shook  with  her  laughter,  her  darken^ 
ing  eyes  suffused  with  happy  tears  at  the  memory,  and 
she  put  her  broad  hand  between  my  shoulders  for  a 
moment  as  if  to  draw  me  into  the  rejoicing  of  her  wed- 
ding feast.  She  led  me  about  the  garden  to  show  me 
how  she  had  from  year  to  year  planted  the  many  trees, 
herbs,  and  bushes  it  contained.  It  had  set  out  to  be 
formal,  but,  like  most  efforts  at  taming  the  fierce  fe- 
cundity of  nature  in  these  seas,  had  become  a  tangle  of 
verdure,  for  though  now  and  then  combed  into  some 
regularity,  the  breezes,  the  dogs,  the  chickens,  and  the 
invading  people  ruffled  it,  the  falling  leaves  covered 
the  grass,  and  the  dead  branches  sighed  for  burial. 
Down  the  narrow  path  she  went  ponderously,  showing 
me  the  cannas,  jasmine  and  rose,  picking  a  lime  or  a 
tamarind,  a  bouquet  of  mock-orange  flowers,  smoothing 
the  tuberoses,  the  hibiscus  of  many  colors,  the  oleanders, 
maile  ilima,  Star  of  Bethlehem,  frangipani,  and,  her 
greatest  love,  the  tiare  Tahiti.  There  were  snake- 
plants,  East-India  cherries,  coffee-bushes,  custard-ap- 
ples, and  the  hinano,  the  sweetness  of  which  and  of  the 
tiare  made  heavy  the  air. 

I  said  that  we  had  no  flower  in  America  as  wonderful 
in  perfume  as  these. 

Lovaina  stopped  her  slow,  heavy  steps.  She  raised 
her  beautiful,  big  hand,  and  arresting  my  attention,  she 
exclaimed: 

•"You  know  that  ol'  hinano!  OY  time  we  use  that 
Tahiti  cologne.  Girl  put  that  on  pareu  an'  on  dress, 
by  an'  by  make  whole  body  jus'  like  flower.  That  set 
man  crazee;  make  all  man  want  kiss  an'  hug." 

Doubtless,  our  foremothers  when  they  sought  to  win 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  55 

the  hunters  of  their  tribes,  took  the  musk,  the  civet,  and 
the  castor  from  the  prey  laid  at  their  feet,  and  made 
maddening  their  smoke-  and  wind-tanned  bodies  to  the 
cave-dwellers.  When  they  became  more  housed  and 
more  clothed,  they  captured  the  juices  of  the  flowers  in 
nutshells,  and  later  in  stone  bottles,  until  now  science 
disdains  animals  and  flowers,  but  takes  chemicals  and 
waste  products  to  make  a  hundred  essences  and  un- 
guents and  sachets  for  toilet  and  boudoir.  These  odors 
of  the  hinano  and  tiare  were  philters  worthy  of  the 
beautiful  Tahitian  girls,  with  their  sinuous,  golden 
bodies  so  sensualized,  so  passionate,  and  so  free. 

The  ordinary  life  of  the  Tiare  Hotel  was  all  upon 
the  broad  verandas  which  surrounded  it,  their  high 
lattices  covered  with  the  climbing  bougainvillea  and 
stephanotis  vines,  which  formed  a  maze  for  the  filter- 
ing of  the  sunlight  and  the  dimming  of  the  activities 
of  the  streets.  On  these  verandas  were  the  tables  for 
eating,  and  in  the  main  bungalow  a  few  bedrooms,  with 
others  in  detached  cottages  within  the  inclosure. 

There  was  a  parlor,  and  it  was  like  the  parlors  of 
all  ambitious  Europeans  or  Americans  in  all  islands — 
a  piano  with  an  injured  tone,  chairs  blue  and  scarlet 
with  plush  covers  that  perspiring  sitters  of  years  had 
made  dark  brown,  a  phonograph,  and  signed  photo- 
graphs of  friends  and  visitors  who  had  said  farewell  to 
Tahiti.  There  were  paintings  of  flowers  by  Lovaina, 
showing  not  a  little  talent  and  much  feeling.  All 
these  were  the  pride  of  her  birthright — "Murricaine" 
fashion,  as  the  hostess  said  pensively. 

I  have  said  that  the  life  of  the  hotel  was  upon  the  ve- 
randa, and  so  it  was  at  mealtime  and  for  the  casual 


56  MYSTIC  ISLES 

tourist  staying  a  day  with  a  steamship  to  or  from 
Zealand  or  the  United  States;  but  to  the  resident  of 
Tahiti,  the  American,  Britisher,  or  non-Latin  Euro- 
pean, the  place  of  interest  in  Papeete  other  than  the 
clubs  was  a  small  porch  approached  from  the  street  by 
a  few  steps. 

On  this  tiny  porch  was  a  large  table,  and  behind  it  a 
couch.  The  table  was  the  only  desk  for  letter-writing, 
the  serving-stand  for  meals,  the  board  for  salad  and 
cake-making,  and  the  drink-bar.  A  few  feet  removed 
from  this  table,  and  against  the  wall,  was  a  camphor- 
wood  chest  on  which  two  might  sit  in  comfort  and  three 
might  squeeze  at  angles.  In  the  chest  was  kept  all  the 
bed  and  table  linen,  so  that  one  might  often  be  disturbed 
by  the  quest  of  sheets  or  napkins. 

Upon  this  little  porch  the  kitchen,  bath,  and  toilets 
opened,  a  few  feet  from  the  table.  It  was  the  sleeping 
and  amusement  quarters  of  five  dogs,  the  loafing  place 
for  the  girls,  the  office  of  the  hotel,  the  entry  for  guests 
to  the  dining-room  or  to  the  other  conveniences. 
Through  it  streamed  all  who  came  to  eat  or  drink  or  for 
any  other  purpose.  The  hotel  having  grown  slowly 
from  a  home,  hardly  any  changes  of  plumbing  had  been 
made,  and  men  and  women  in  dressing-gowns,  in  pa- 
jamas, or  in  other  undress  came  and  went,  under  the 
interested  gaze  of  idlers  and  drinkers,  and  they  had 
often  to  endure  intimate  questions  or  badinage.  All 
were  on  a  footing  as  to  the  arrangements,  and  I 
saw  the  haughty  duchess  of  the  Noa-Noa  follow  Lo- 
vaina's  American  negro  chauffeur,  while  a  former  am- 
bassador waited  on  the  chest.  There  was  no  distinction 
of  rank,  since  Tahiti,  excepting  for  an  occasional 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  51 

French  official,  was  the  purest  democracy  of  manners 
in  the  world,  a  philosophy  the  whites  had  learned  from 
the  natives,  who  think  all  foreigners  equally  distin- 
guished. 

Those  not  of  the  South  Seas,  and  unused  to  the  primi- 
tive publicity  of  the  natural  functions  there,  suffered 
intensely  at  first  from  embarrassment,  but  in  time  for- 
got their  squeamishness,  and  perhaps  learned  to  carry 
on  conversations  with  those  who  drank  or  chatted  out- 
side. 

The  Tahitian  cook  slept  all  day  between  meals  on  a 
chair,  with  his  head  hanging  out  a  window.  He  was 
ill  often  from  a  rush  of  blood  to  his  head.  Lovaina 
had  offered  him  a  mat  to  lie  on  the  floor,  but  he  pleaded 
his  habit.  All  the  refuse  of  the  kitchen  was  thrown 
into  the  garden  under  this  window,  and  with  the  horses, 
chickens,  dogs,  and  cats  it  was  first  come,  first  served. 

On  the  couch  back  of  the  table  Lovaina  sat  for  many 
hours  every  day.  Her  great  weight  made  her  disin- 
clined to  walk,  and  from  her  cushions  she  ruled  her  do- 
main, chaffing  with  those  who  dropped  in  for  drinks, 
advising  and  joking,  making  cakes  and  salads,  bargain- 
ing with  the  butcher  and  vegetable-dealer,  despatching 
the  food  toward  the  tables,  feeding  many  dogs,  posting 
her  accounts,  receiving  payments,  and  regulating  the 
complex  affairs  of  her  menage.  She  would  shake  a 
cocktail,  make  a  gin-fizz  or  a  Doctor  Funk,  chop  ice  or 
do  any  menial  service,  yet  withal  was  your  entertainer 
and  your  friend.  She  had  the  striking,  yet  almost  in- 
explicable, dignity  of  the  Maori — the  facing  of  life 
serenely  and  without  reserve  or  fear  for  the  morrow. 

Underneath  the  table  dogs  tumbled,  or  raced  about 


58  MYSTIC  ISLES 

the  porch,  barking  and  leaping  on  laps,  cats  scurried 
past,  and  a  cloud  of  tobacco  smoke  filled  the  close  air. 
Lovaina,  in  one  of  her  sixty  bright  gowns,  a  white 
chemise  beneath,  her  feet  bare,  sat  enthroned.  On  the 
chest  were  the  captain  of  a  liner  or  a  schooner,  a  tourist, 
a  trader,  a  girl,  an  old  native  woman,  or  a  beach- 
comber with  money  for  the  moment.  It  was  the  carpet 
of  state  on  which  all  took  their  places  who  would  have 
a  hearing  before  the  throne  or  loaf  in  the  audience- 
chamber. 

In  her  low,  delightfully  broken  English,  in  vivid 
French,  or  sibilant  Tahitian,  Lovaina  issued  her  or- 
ders to  the  girls,  shouted  maledictions  at  the  cook,  or 
talked  with  all  who  came.  Through  that  porch  flowed 
all  the  scandal  of  the  South  Seas — tales  of  hurricanes 
and  waterspouts,  of  shipwrecks,  of  accidents,  of  lucky 
deals  in  pearls  or  shells,  of  copra,  of  new  fashions  and 
old  inhabitants,  of  liaisons  of  white  and  brown,  of  the 
flirtations  of  tourists,  of  the  Government's  issuing  an 
ultimatum  on  the  price  of  fish,  of  how  the  consuls  quar  - 
reled  at  a  club  dinner,  and  of  how  one  threw  three  ribs 
of  roasted  beef  at  the  other,  who  retorted  with  a  whole 
sucking  pig  just  from  the  native  oven,  of  Thomas'  wife 
leaving  him  for  Europe  after  a  month's  honeymoon; 
and  all  the  flotsam  and  jetsam  of  report  and  rumor,  of 
joke  and  detraction,  which  in  an  island  with  only  one 
mail  a  month  are  the  topics  of  interest. 

The  porch  was  the  clearing-house  and  the  casual,  oral 
record  of  the  spreading  South  Seas.  It  was  the  strang- 
est salon  of  any  capital,  and  Lovaina  the  most  fascin- 
ating of  hostesses.  Stories  that  would  be  frowned  down 
in  many  a  man's  club  were  laughed  at  lightly  over  the 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  59 

table,  but  not  when  tourists,  new-comers,  were  present. 
Then  the  dignified  Lovaina,  repressing  the  oaths  of 
potvaliant  skippers,  putting  her  finger  to  her  lips  when 
a  bald  assertion  was  imminent,  said  impressively: 

"That  swears  don't  go!  What  you  think?  To  give 
bad  name  my  good  house?" 

Only  when  old-timers  were  gathered,  between  steam- 
ships, when  the  schooners  came  in  "a  drove  from  the 
Paumotu  atolls,  and  gold  and  silver  rang  on  the  table  at 
all  hours,  there  was  little  restraint. 

With  only  one  mail  a  month  to  disturb  the  monotony, 
and  but  trifling  interest  in  anything  north  of  the  equa- 
tor except  prices  of  their  commodities,  these  unre- 
pressed  rebels  against  the  conventions  and  even  the 
laws  of  the  Occident  must  have  their  fling.  On  that 
camphor-wood  chest  had  sat  many  a  church-going 
woman  and  dignified  man  of  Europe  or  America,  resi- 
dent for  a  month  or  longer  in  Tahiti,  and  shuddered  at 
what  they  heard — shuddered  and  listened,  eager  to  hear 
those  curious  incidents  and  astonishing  opinions  about 
life  and  affairs,  and  to  mark  the  difference  between  this 
and  their  own  countries.  It  was  without  even  comment 
that  people  who  at  home  or  among  the  conventions 
would  be  shocked  at  the  subjects  or  their  treatment,  in 
these  islands  listened  thrilled  or  chucklingly  to  stories  as 
naked  as  the  children.  Double  entendre  is  caviar  to  the 
average  man  and  woman  of  Tahiti,  who  call  the  un- 
shrouded  spade  by  its  aboriginal  name.  The  Tahitians 
were  ever  thus,  and  the  French  have  not  sought  to  correct 
their  ways.  I  heard  Atupu,  one  of  the  girls  of  the 
hotel,  in  a  Rabelaisian  passage  of  wit  the  while  she 
opened  Seattle  beer  for  thirsty  Britishers,  old  residents, 


60  MYSTIC  ISLES 

traders,    and    planters.     One    could    not    publish    the 
phrases  if  one  could  translate  them. 

Lovaina,  in  her  bed  just  off  the  porch,  was  laughing 
at  the  retorts  of  Atupu,  who  by  her  native  knowledge 
of  the  tongue  was  discomfiting  the  roisterers,  who  spoke 
it  haltingly.  I  heard  an  apt  interjection  on  the  part 
of  the  proprietress  which  set  them  all  roaring,  and  so 
lowered  their  self-esteem  that  they  left  summarily. 

One  day  when  I  was  hurrying  off  to  swim  in  the 
lagoon,  I  asked  Lovaina  to  guard  a  considerable  sum  of 
money  in  bank-notes.  She  assented  readily,  but  when 
several  days  later  I  mentioned  the  money  she  struck  her 
head  in  alarm.  She  thought  and  thought,  but  could  not 
remember  in  what  safe  place  she  had  hidden  the  paper 
francs. 

"My  God!  Brien,"  she  said  in  desperation,  "all  time 
I  jus'  like  that  crazee  way.  One  time  one  engineer  big 
steamship  come  here,  he  ask  me  keep  two  thousan'  dol- 
lar for  him.  I  busy  jus'  like  always,  an'  I  throw  behin' 
that  couch  I  sit  on.  My  God!  he  come  back  I  fore-get 
where  I  put.  One  day  we  look  hard.  I  suffer  tur- 
ribil,  but  the  nex'  day  I  move  couch  and  find  money. 
Was  n't  that  funny?" 

I  suggested  we  try  the  couch  again,  but  though  we 
turned  up  a  number  of  lost  odds  and  ends,  it  was  not  the 
cache  of  my  funds.  By  way  of  cheering  her,  I  ordered 
a  rum  punch,  and  when  she  went  to  crack  the  ice,  a 
gleam  of  remembrance  came  to  her,  and,  lo!  my  money 
was  found  in  the  reserve  butter  supply  in  the  refrig- 
erator, where  she  had  artfully  placed  it  out  of  harm's 
way.  It  was  quite  greasy,  but  intact. 

The  first  breakfast  at  the  Tiare  began  at  6:30,  but 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  61 

lingered  for  several  hours.  It  was  of  fruit  and  coffee 
and  bread;  papayas,  bananas,  oranges,  pineapples,  and 
alligator-pears,  which  latter  the  French  call  avocats,  the 
Mexicans  ahuacatl,  and  were  brought  here  from  the 
West  Indies.  To  this  breakfast  male  guests  dropped 
in  from  the  bath  in  pajamas,  but  the  dejeuner  a  la 
fourchette,  or  second  breakfast  at  eleven,  was  more 
formal,  and  of  four  courses,  fish,  bacon  and  eggs,  curry 
and  rice,  tongues  and  sounds,  beefsteak  and  potatoes, 
feiSj  roast  beef  or  mutton,  sucking  pig,  and  cabbage  or 
sauer-kraut.  For  dessert  there  was  sponge-  or  cocoa- 
nut-cake.  All  business  in  Papeete  opened  at  seven 
o'clock  and  closed  at  eleven,  to  reopen  from  one  until 
five.  Dinner  at  half -past  six  o'clock  was  a  repetition 
of  the  late  breakfast  except  that  a  vegetable  or  cabbage 
soup  was  also  served. 

Two  Chinese  youths,  To  Sen  and  Hon  Son,  were  the 
regular  waiters,  but  were  supplemented  by  Atupu, 
Iromea,  Pepe,  Akura,  Tetua,  Maru,  and  Juillet,  all 
Tahitian  girls  or  young  women  who  had  a  mixed  status 
of  domestics,  friends,  kinfolk,  visitors,  and  hetairae,  the 
latter  largely  in  the  sense  of  entertainers.  I  doubt  if 
they  were  paid  more  than  a  trifle,  and  they  were  from 
the  country  districts  or  near-by  islands,  moths  drawn  by 
the  flame  of  the  town  to  soar  in  its  feverish  heat,  to  singe 
their  wings,  and  to  grow  old  before  their  time,  or  to 
grasp  the  opportunity  to  satiate  their  thirst  for  foreign 
luxuries  by  semi-permanent  alliances  with  whites. 

Lovaina's  girls!  How  their  memory  must  survive 
with  the  guests  of  the  Tiare  Hotel !  One  read  of  them 
in  every  book  of  travel  encompassing  Tahiti.  One 
heard  of  them  from  every  man  who  had  dropped  upon 


62  MYSTIC  ISLES 

this  beach.  Once  in  Mukden,  Manchuria,  I  sat  up  half 
the  night  while  the  American  consul  and  a  globe-trotter 
painted  for  me  the  portraits  of  Lovaina's  girls. 

I  was  atop  a  disorderly  camel  named  Mark  Twain 
nosing  about  the  Sphinx  when  my  companion  remarked 
that  that  stony-faced  lady  looked  a  good  deal  like  Te- 
manu  of  Lovaina's.  Then  I  had  to  have  the  whole 
story  of  Lovaina  and  her  household.  I  have  heard  it 
away  from  Tahiti  a  dozen  times  and  always  different. 

Doubtless,  in  the  dozen  years  the  gentle  Lovaina  min- 
istered to  the  needs  of  travelers  and  residents,  many 
girls  came  and  went  in  her  house.  Some  have  married, 
and  some  have  gone  away  without  a  ring,  but  all  have 
been  made  much  of  by  those  they  served,  and  have  lived 
gayly  and  by  the  way. 

Lovaina,  herself,  said  to  me: 

"You  know  those  girl',  they  go  ruin.  That  girl  you 
see  here  few  minutes  ago  I  bring  her  up  just  like 
Christian;  be  good,  be  true,  do  her  prayers,  make  her 
soul  all  right.  Then  I  go  San  Francisco.  What  you 
think?  When  I  come  back  she  ruin.  'Most  break  my 
heart.  That  man  he  come  to  me,  he  say:  'Lovaina,  I 
take  good  care  that  girl.  I  love  her.'  That  girl  with 
him  now.  She  happy,  got  plenty  dress,  plenty  best  to 
eat,  and  nice  buggy.  I  tell  you,  I  give  up  trying  save 
those  girl'.  I  think  they  like  ruin  best.  I  turn  my 
back — they  ruin." 

Iromea  was  the  sturdy  veteran  of  the  corps.  Tall, 
handsome,  straight,  mother  of  four  children,  obliging, 
wise  in  the  way  of  the  white,  herself  all  native. 

"And  the  babies?"  I  inquired. 

"They  all  scatter.     Some  in  country;  some  different 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  63 

place,"  answered  Iromea,  who  ran  from  English  to 
French  to  Tahitian,  but  of  course  not  with  the  ease  of 
Lovaina,  for  that  great  heart  knew  many  of  the  cities 
of  her  father's  land,  was  educated  in  needlework  style, 
and  with  a  little  dab  of  Yankee  culture,  now  fast  dis- 
appearing as  she  grew  older.  One  marked  that  ten- 
dency to  reversion  to  the  native  type  and  ways  among 
many  islanders  who  had  been  superficially  coated  with 
civilization,  but  whom  environment  and  heredity  claim 
inexorably. 

Iromea  was  thirty  years  old.  She  had  been  loved  by 
many  white  men,  men  of  distinction  here;  sea-rovers, 
merchants,  and  lotus-eaters,  writers,  painters,  and 
wastrels. 

Juillet,  whose  native  name  was  Tiurai,  helped  old 
Madame  Rose  to  care  for  the  rooms  at  the  Tiare.  She 
was  thirteen  years  old,  willowy,  with  a  beautiful,  smil- 
ing face,  and  two  long,  black  plaits.  Though  innocent, 
almost  artless,  in  appearance,  she  was  an  arch  coquette, 
and  flirted  with  old  and  young.  One  day  a  turkey  that 
shared  the  back  yard  with  two  automobiles,  a  horse,  three 
carriages,  several  dogs,  ten  cats,  and  forty  chickens,  dis- 
appeared. Juillet  was  sent  to  find  the  turkey.  She 
was  gone  four  days,  and  came  back  with  a  brilliant  new 
gown.  She  brought  with  her  the  turkey,  which  she 
said  she  had  been  trying  to  drive  back  all  the  four  days. 

Juillet  was  named  for  the  month  of  July.  Her 
mother  was  the  cook  of  a  governor  when  she  was  born 
on  the  fourteenth  of  July,  the  anniversary  of  the  fall  of 
the  Bastile,  and  the  governor  named  her  for  the  month. 
She  was  also  named  Nohorae,  and  noho  means  to  be 
naked  and  rae  forehead.  Juillet  had  a  high  forehead. 


64 

Lovaina  pointed  out  to  me  the  man  who  had  taken 
away  her  favorite  helper.  He  was  about  forty  years 
old,  tall,  angular,  sharp-nosed,  with  gold  eyeglasses.  I 
would  have  expected  to  meet  him  in  the  vestry  of  a 
church  or  to  have  been  asked  bv  him  at  a  mission  if  I 

V 

were  saved,  but  in  Tahiti  he  had  gone  the  way  of  all 
flesh.  His  voice  had  the  timbre  of  the  preacher.  He 
had  come  to  the  hotel  in  an  expensive,  new  automobile 
to  fetch  cooked  food  for  himself  and  Ruine. 

"Seven  or  eight  leper  that  man  support,"  said 
Lovaina  to  me.  "They  die  for  him,  he  so  good  to  them. 
He  help  everybodee.  He  give  them  leper  the  Bible, 
and  sometime  he  go  read  them." 

It  would  be  the  Song  of  Solomon  he  would  read  to 
Ruine.  She  had  red  hair,  red  black  or  black  red,  a  not 
unusual  color  in  Tahiti,  and  her  eyes  had  a  glint  of  red 
in  their  brown.  She  was  exquisite  in  her  silken  peignoir, 
a  wreath  of  scarlet  hibiscus-flowers  on  her  head,  and  a 
string  of  gorgeous  baroque  pearls  about  her  rounded 
neck. 

My  room  at  the  Tiare  was  in  the  upper  story  of  an 
old  house  that  sat  alone  in  the  back  garden,  among  the 
domestics,  automobiles,  carriages,  horses,  pigs,  and 
fowls.  The  house  had  wide  verandas  all  about  it,  and 
the  stairway  outside.  A  few  nights  after  I  had  arrived 
in  Tahiti  I  was  writing  letters  on  the  piazza,  the  length 
of  the  room  away  from  the  stairs.  I  had  a  lamp  on  my 
table,  and  the  noise  of  my  type-writer  hushed  the  sounds 
of  any  one  entering  the  apartment.  It  was  about  ten 
o'clock,  and  between  sentences  I  looked  at  the  night. 
The  stars  were  in  coruscating  masses,  the  riches  of  the 
heavens  disclosed  as  onlv  at  such  a  cloudless  hour  in  this 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  65 

southern  hemisphere,  the  Milky  Way  showing  ten 
thousand  gleaming  members  of  the  galaxy  that  are  hid- 
den in  our  skies.  I  thought  of  those  happy  mariners 
who  first  sailed  their  small,  wooden  ships  into  these  mys- 
terious seas,  and  first  of  our  race,  saw  this  strangely  bril- 
liant macrocosm,  and  appreciated  it  for  its  marvels  and 
its  differences  from  their  own  bleaker,  Western  vault. 

There  were  no  doors  in  the  openings  into  my  room 
from  the  verandas,  but  hangings  of  gorgeous  scarlet  cal- 
ico, pareus,  kept  out  the  blazing  sun,  and  lent  a  little 
privacy  at  night.  All  the  furniture  was  a  chair,  a  dress- 
ing-table, and  two  large  beds,  canopied  with  mosquito- 
nets,  evidently  provided  for  a  double  lodging  if  needed. 

As  I  finished  my  letters  twenty  feet  away,  a  Tahitian 
girl  parted  the  farther  curtain  nearest  the  stairway,  and 
slipped  into  the  room  with  the  silence  of  the  accustomed 
barefooted.  Imagine  her  in  her  gayest  gown  of  rose 
color,  a  garland  of  /*mano-flowers  on  her  glossy  head,  her 
tawny  hair  in  two  plaits  to  her  unconfined  waist,  and  her 
eyes  shining  with  the  spirit  of  her  quest ! 

She  looked  through  the  room  to  wrhere  I  sat  in  the 
semi-obscurity,  and  then  knelt  down  by  the  first  bed, 
and  waited.  I  gazed  again  at  the  starry  heavens,  and, 
stepping  over  the  threshold,  entered  the  chamber,  lamp 
in  hand.  I  undressed  leisurely,  and  putting  about  me 
the  pareu  Lovaina  had  given  me,  I  threw  the  light  upon 
the  two  beds  to  make  my  nightly  choice.  I  sun-eyed 
them  both  critically,  but  the  one  nearest  to  me  having 
the  netting  arranged  for  entrance,  I  selected  it,  and 
setting  the  lamp  upon  the  dresser,  extinguished  it, 
groped  to  the  bed  in  darkness,  and  lay  down  upon  the 
coverless  sheet.  A  few  minutes  I  stayed  awake  going 


66  MYSTIC  ISLES 

over  the  happenings  of  the  day,  and  fell  asleep  in  joyful 
mood  that  I  was  in  the  island  I  had  sought  so  long  in 
desire  and  dream.  I  knew  nothing  of  my  visitor,  for 
she  had  made  no  audible  sound,  and  the  shadows  had 
hidden  her. 

At  breakfast  the  next  morning  I  was  waited  on  by 
Atupu,  the  beauty.  Her  face  was  tear-stained,  and  a 
deep  weariness  was  upon  her.  She  regarded  me  with 
a  glance  of  mixed  anger  and  hurt. 

"Vous  etes  fache  avec  moi?"  she  inquired  accusingly. 

"I  angry  with  you?"  I  repeated.  "Why  what  have  I 
done  to  show  it?" 

And  then  she  told  me  of  her  visit  and  vigil.  Seeing 
me  alone  in  Tahiti,  and  kind-hearted,  she  said,  she  had 
thought  to  tell  me  of  the  Tahitian  heart  and  the  old  ways 
of  the  land.  She  had  robed,  perfumed,  and  adorned  her- 
self, and  entered  my  sleeping-place,  as  she  said  was  the 
wont  of  Tahitian  girls.  I  had  certainly  heard  her  en- 
ter, and  seen  her  kneel  to  await  my  greeting,  and  if 
not  then,  I  had  seen  her  plainly  when  I  lifted  the  lamp, 
for  the  light  had  streamed  full  upon  her.  She  had  re- 
mained there  upon  the  floor  half  an  hour  until  my  audi- 
ble breathing  had  compelled  her  to  believe  against  her 
will  that  I  was  asleep.  Then  she  had  fled  and  wept  the 
night  in  humiliation.  Never  in  her  young  life  had  such 
a  horror  afflicted  her. 

I  was  stunned,  and  could  only  reiterate  that  I  had 
not  known  of  her  presence,  and  with  a  trinket  from  my 
pocket  I  dried  her  tears. 

Rupert  Brooke  in  a  letter  to  a  friend  in  England 
drew  a  little  etching  of  our  lodging: 

I  am  in  a  hovel  at  the  back  of  my  hotel,  and  contemplate  the 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  6T 

yard.  The  extraordinary  life  of  the  place  flows  round  and  near 
my  room — for  here  no  one,  man  or  woman,  scruples  to  come 
through  one's  room  at  any  moment,  if  it  happens  to  be  a  short- 
cut. By  day  nothing  much  happens  in  the  yard — except  when 
a  horse  tried  to  eat  a  hen,  the  other  afternoon.  But  by  night, 
after  ten,  it  is  filled  with  flitting  figures  of  girls,  with  wreaths 
of  white  flowers,  keeping  assignations.  ...  It  is  all — all 
Papeete — like  a  Renaissance  Italy  with  the  venom  taken  out, 
No,  simpler,  light-come  and  light-go,  passionate  and  forgetful, 
like  children,  and  all  the  time  South  Pacific,  that  is  to  say  un- 
malicious  and  good-tempered. 

When  a  steamship  was  in  port  the  Tiare  was  a  hurly- 
burly.  Perhaps  forty  or  even  a  hundred  extra  patrons 
came  for  meals  or  drinks.  It  was  amusing  to  hear  their 
uncomprehending  anger  at  their  failure  to  obtain  quick 
service  or  even  a  smile  by  their  accustomed  manner  to- 
ward dark  peoples.  The  British,  who  were  the  majority 
of  the  travelers,  have  a  cold,  autocratic  attitude  toward 
all  who  wait  upon  them,  but  especially  toward  those  of 
the  colored  races.  In  Tahiti  they  suffered  utter  dismay, 
because  Tahitians  know  no  servitude  and  pay  no  atten- 
tion to  sharp  words. 

I  saw  a  red-faced  woman  giving  an  order  for  aperitifs 
to  To  Sen,  the  Chinese  waiter. 

"Two  old-fashioned  gin  cocktails,"  she  iterated. 
"You  savee,  gin  and  bitters?  Be  sure  it 's  Angostura, 
and  lemon  and  soda,  and  two  Manhattans  with  rye 
whisky.  Hurry  along  now!  Old-fashioned,  remem- 
ber!" 

In  ten  minutes  Temanu  came  for  the  order.  To  Sen 
knew  no  English,  and  Temanu  only,  "Yais,  ma  dar- 
)eeng,"  and  "Whatnahell?" 

"Spik  Furanche?"  she  begged. 


68 

"Oui,  oui!"  said  the  red-faced  lady.  "Dooze  cocktail! 
Vous  savez  cocktail,  a  la  mode  des  ancients?  Gin,  oon 
dash  bittair,  lem'  et  soda!" 

"Mais,  madame,  douze  cocktail!"  and  the  half-caste 
Chinese  girl  held  up  all  her  fingers  and  added  two  more. 
"Vous  n  'etes  que  quatre  id!  Quatre  cocktails,  n  'est-ce 
pas?" 

"Dooze  gin,  dooze  Manhattan?  My  heavens!  They 
ought  to  understand  my  French  in  this  out-of-the-way 
place  when  they  do  in  Paris.  Listen!  Dooze  is  two 
in  French,"  and  she  held  up  two  pudgy  fingers.  But 
Temanu  was  gone  and  returned  with  four  cocktails 
made  after  her  own  liking. 

All  the  girls,  Atupu,  Iromea,  Pepe,  Maru,  Tetua, 
and  Mme.  Rose  and  Mama-Maru,  helped  in  the  service, 
some  beginning  with  shoes  and  stockings,  but  soon  slip- 
ping them  off  as  the  crowd  grew  and  their  feet  became 
weary.  Lovaina  herself  moved  happily  about  the  salle  • 
a-manger  telling  her  friends  that  she  was  a  grandmother. 
A  letter  had  given  the  information  that  her  daughter 
had  a  child.  She  was  a  doting  parent,  and  we  all  must 
toast  the  newborn.  Two  grave  professors  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  California,  ichthyologists  or  entomologists, 
sat  entranced  at  the  unconventionally  of  the  scene, 
drinking  vin  ordinaire  and  gazing  at  the  Tahitian  girls, 
or  eating  breadfruit,  raw  fish,  and  taro,  as  if  they  were 
on  Mars  and  did  not  know  how  they  got  there. 

I  saw  an  entry  in  Lovaina's  day-book  on  the  table: 

"Germani  to  Fany         3  feathers." 

This  was  a  charge  made  by  Atupu  against  a  Dane  for 
three  cocktails.  He  took  his  meals  at  Mme.  Klopfer's 
restaurant.  Her  first  name  is  Fanny,  and  Atupu 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  69 

thinks  all  men  not  English,  French,  or  Americans,  are 
Germans;  so  she  identified  the  Dane  as  the  German 
who  went  to  Fanny's  for  his  meals. 

Lovaina  said  to  me : 

"I  hear  you  look  one  house  that  maybe  you  rent. 
You  don't  get  wise  if  you  rent  from  that  French 
woman.  I  don't  say  nothing  about  her,  but  you  know 
her  tongue?  So  sharp  jus'  like  knife.  All  time  she 
have  trouble.  Can't  rent  her  house  so  sharp.  Some 
artist  he  rent;  she  take  box,  peep  over  see  what  he  do 
jus'  because  he  have  some  girl.  Nobody  talk  her  down. 
No,  I  take  back.  Jus'  one  French  woman  who  know 
to  swear  turribil.  This  swear  woman  she  call  her  tur- 
ribil  name  and  say,  'Everybody  don't  know  you  was  con- 
vict in  Noumea  for  killing  one  man  for  money.'  That 
turribil  talk,  and  she  jus'  fell  down.  Good  for  her,  I 
think." 

Lovaina  seldom  rode  in  her  automobile,  which  she 
kept  primarily  for  renting  to  guests  for  country  tours. 
She  had  had  for  years  a  carriage,  a  surrey,  drawn  by 
one  horse,  which  had  grown  old  and  rickety  with  the 
vehicle.  The  driver  was  a  mute,  Vava,  his  name  mean- 
ing dumb  in  Tahitian,  and  the  English  and  Americans 
called  him  the  Dummy.  He  was  attached  to  Lovaina 
as  a  child  to  his  mother — a  wayward,  jealous,  cloudy- 
minded  child,  who  almost  daily  broke  into  fits  of  anger 
over  incidents  misunderstood  by  his  groping  mentality, 
and  because  of  his  incommunicable  feelings.  The  hotel 
was  in  a  fearsome  uproar  when  Vava  fell  into  a  tantrum, 
women  patrons  afraid  of  his  possible  actions  and  men 
threatening  to  club  him  into  a  mild  frame  of  mind.  I 
doubt  if  any  one  there  could  have  subdued  him  physi- 


70  MYSTIC  ISLES 

cally,  for  he  was  a  thick-bodied  man  in  his  thirties, 
with  a  stamina  and  a  strength  incredibly  developed.  I 
had  seen  him  once  lift  over  a  fence  a  barrel  of  flour,  two 
hundred  pounds  in  weight,  and  without  full  effort.  His 
skin  was  very  dark,  his  facial  expression  one  of  ire  and 
frustration,  but  of  conscious  superiority  to  all  about 
him.  He  had  had  no  aids  to  overcome  his  natal  infirmity 
of  deafness  and  consequent  dumbness,  none  of  the  edu- 
cational assistance  modern  science  lends  these  unfortu- 
nates, no  finger  alphabet,  or  even  another  inarticulate 
for  sympathy.  He  was  like  the  mutes  of  history,  of 
courts  and  romances,  condemned  to  suffer  in  silence  the 
humor  and  contempt  of  all  about  him,  though  he  felt 
himself  better  than  they  in  body  and  in  the  under- 
standing of  things,  which  he  could  not  make  them  know. 
This  repression  made  him  often  like  a  wild  beast,  though 
mostly  he  was  half -clown  and  half-infant  in  his  conduct. 
He  had  a  gift  of  mimicry  incomparably  finer  than  any 
professional's  I  knew  of.  This,  with  his  gestures,  stood 
him  instead  of  speech.  A  certain  haughty  English 
woman  whose  elaborate  hats  in  an  island  where  women 
were  hatless,  or  wore  simple,  native  weaves,  were  noted 
atrocities,  and  whose  chin  was  almost  nil,  kept  the  car- 
riage and  me  waiting  for  breakfast  while  she  primped  in 
her  lodging.  The  Dummy  uttered  one  of  his  abortive 
sounds,  much  like  that  of  an  angry  puma,  contorted  his 
face,  and  put  his  hand  above  his  head,  so  that  I  had  a 
very  vivid  suggestion  of  the  lady,  her  sloping  chin  and 
her  hat,  at  which  all  Papeete  laughed.  Vava's  gesticu- 
lations and  grimaces  were  unerring  cartoons  without 
paper  or  ink.  If  one  could  have  seen  him  draw  one- 
self, one's  pride  would  have  tumbled.  He  saw  the  most 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  71 

ridiculous  aspect  of  one.  His  indication  of  Lovaina's 
figure  made  one  shriek,  and  the  governor  would  have 
sentenced  him  for  lese-majesty  had  he  seen  himself  taken 
off.  The  sounds  he  made  in  which  he  greeted  any  one 
he  liked,  or  in  anger,  were  terrible,  dismaying.  They 
must  have  been  those  made  by  our  ancestors,  the  first 
primates,  when  they  began  the  struggle  toward  intelli- 
gent language.  Vava's  sounds  were  as  the  muttering  of 
an  ape,  deep  in  his  throat,  or,  when  he  was  roused,  high 
and  shrill,  like  the  cry  of  a  rabbit  when  the  hound 
seizes  it.  He  could  make  Lovaina  know  anything  he 
wanted  to,  and  she  could  direct  him  to  do  anything  she 
wished.  In  that  house  of  mirth,  brightness,  and  laugh- 
ter, he  was  as  a  cunning  and,  at  times,  hateful  jester, 
feared  by  the  Tahitians,  and,  indeed,  to  whites  a  shadowy 
skeleton  at  the  feast,  a  thing  of  indescribable  possibilities. 
I  knew  him,  he  liked  me,  and  I  drew  from  him  by  mo- 
tions and  expressions  some  measure  of  his  feelings  and 
sufferings.  But  I,  too,  occasionally,  shuddered  at  the 
animal  cries  and  frightful  grimaces  wrung  from  him  in 
beating  down  his  soul  bent  on  murder. 

Lovaina  was  a  spendthrift,  giving  money  liberally  to 
relatives,  lending  it  to  improvident  borrowers,  and  dis- 
pensing it  with  open  hands  when  she  had  it,  though  al- 
ways herself  in  debt.  Yet  she  liked  to  make  money, 
and  to  have  her  hotel  filled  with  tourists  who  patronized 
her  little  bar  or  drank  at  meals  other  wines  than  the  ex- 
cellent Bordeaux,  white  or  red,  which  was  free  with 
food.  Most  she  loved  the  appearance  of  prosperity, 
the  crowding  of  casual  voyagers  on  steamer-days,  the 
tisit  of  war-ships,  the  sound  of  music  in  her  parlor,  the 
Bustling  of  dancers,  and  the  laughter  and  excitement 


when  the  maids  were  busied  carrying  champagne  and 
cheaper  drinks  to  the  verandas. 

I  saw  her  at  her  best  when  El  President e  Sarmiento, 
an  Argentine  training-ship,  came  to  port  with  a  hundred 
cadets.  A  madness  then  possessed  the  girls  of  Tahiti. 

Forsaking  their  old  loves  or  those  of  the  moment,  they 
threw  themselves  into  the  arms  of  the  visitors,  deter- 
mined on  conquest.  The  quays  where  the  launches  of 
the  Sarmiento  landed  their  passengers,  and  the  streets 
about  the  saloons,  restaurants,  and  theaters,  were 
thronged  with  the  fairest  and  gayest  girls  of  the  island. 
They  poured  in  from  the  country  to  share  in  the  love- 
making.  The  cafes  were  filled  with  dancing  and  singing 
crowds,  the  volatile  Argentineans  matching  the  Tahi- 
tians  in  abandon  and  ardor. 

Accordions,  violins,  guitars,  and  mandolins  were 
played  everywhere.  The  scores  of  public  automobiles 
were  engaged  by  joyous  parties  who  sallied  to  the  rural 
resorts,  each  Juan  with  his  vahine.  Mostly  unable  to 
exchange  a  word,  they  were  kissing  and  embracing  in 
their  seats.  The  ship  had  been  there  a  year  before,  and 
many  of  the  men  were  hunting  former  sweethearts. 
They  found  that  very  difficult,  as  they  had  not  accurate 
descriptions. 

"A  beauty  named  Atupu,"  or  "A  black-eyed  girl?" 
They  had  no  aid  among  the  girls  they  interrogated. 

"Why  bother  with  some  one  who  may  be  dead  when 
we  are  here?"  they  asked.  And  Juan  listened  to  the 
sirens  and  rested  content. 

At  Lovaina's  there  were  seventy  to  dinner.  Captain 
and  officers  were  cheek  by  jowl  with  gunners  and  plain 
sailors.  The  veranda  was  jammed  with  tables,  corks 


73 

hitting  the  ceiling,  glasses  clinking,  and  Spanish,  French, 
English,  and  Tahitian  confused  in  the  chatter  and  the 
shouts  of  To  Sen,  Hon  Son,  the  maids,  and  a  dozen 
friends  of  the  hostess  who  always  came  at  such  times  to 
share  the  glory  of  the  service. 

Lovaina  was  at  the  serving-table  with  volunteers  cut- 
ting cakes  and  taking  the  money.  The  parlor,  with  its 
red  and  blue  plush  chairs,  was  filled  with  Argentineans 
playing  the  piano  and  singing  songs  of  their  country. 
Suddenly  Lovaina  discovered  that  some  one  had  stolen 
the  album  of  portraits  from  the  piano-top.  These 
were  of  her  family,  and  of  notable  visitors  who  had 
written  grateful  notes  after  their  return  home,  and  sent 
their  pictures  to  her.  Professor  Hart,  teacher  of  Eng- 
lish aboard  the  Sarmiento,  was  asked  to  find  the  thief, 
and  he  promised  that  he  would  have  the  ship  searched. 

Lovaina  lamented  her  loss,  but  counted  her  sovereigns. 
The  Argentineans  had  English  gold,  and  Lovaina 
passed  the  shining,  new  pieces  from  one  hand  to  the 
other,  enjoying  their  glitter  and  sound.  She  liked  to 
play  with  coins,  and  often  amused  herself  as  did  the 
king  in  the  blackbird-pie  melody. 

"My  God!"  said  Lovaina,  as  she  pulled  me  down  to 
her  bench  and  rubbed  my  back,  "that  Argentina  is  good 
country!  Forty  dollars  lime  squash  by  himself."  She 
opened  her  purse,  and  poured  out  more  gold.  With  it 
fell  a  cloth  medallion,  red  letters  on  white  flannel,  "The 
Apostleship  of  Prayer  in  League  with  the  Sacred 
Heart  of  Jesus." 

"I  find  that  on  the  floor  two  day'  'go,"  said  Lovaina, 
'"and  I  put  it  in  purse  to  see  if  good  luck.  What  you 
ihink?  Argentinas  come  in  nex'  day.  I  don'  know, 


74  MYSTIC  ISLES 

but  that  thing  is  good  to  me.     See  those  bottle'  cham- 
pagne goin'  in?" 

Perhaps  I  shall  carry  longer  than  any  other  memory 
of  Tahiti  that  of  the  endearing  nature,  the  honest  heart, 
and  the  laughing,  starry  eyes  of  Lovaina,  with  a  ^'are- 
blossom  over  her  ear,  or  a  chaplet  of  those  flowers  upon 
her  head,  as  she  sat  on  her  throne  behind  the  serving- 
table,  and  I  on  the  camphor- wood  chest. 


CHAPTER  V 

The   Pare  de  Bougainville — Ivan  Stroganoff — He  tells  me  the  history  of 
Tahiti — He  berates  the  Tahitians — Wants  me  to  start  a  newspaper. 

IX  the  pare  de  Bougainville  I  sat  down  on  a  bench 
on  which  was  an  old  European.     He  was  reading 
a  tattered  number  of  "Simplicissimus,"  and  held 
the  paper  close  to  his  watery  eyes.     I   said,   "Good 
morning"  and  he  replied  in  fluent  though  accented  Eng- 
lish. 

His  appearance  was  eccentric.  He  was  stout,  and 
with  a  rough,  white  beard  all  over  his  face  and  neck, 
and  even  on  his  chest.  He  wore  a  frock  coat  and  a 
large  cow-boy  hat  of  white  felt.  His  sockless  feet  were 
in  old  base-ball  shoes  of  "eelskin,"  which  were  of  the 
exact  color  of  his  coat,  a  dull  green,  like  moldy,  dried 
peas.  Apparently  the  coat  was  his  only  garment;  but 
it  was  capacious,  and  came  almost  to  his  knobby  knees. 
Missing  buttons  down  its  front  were  replaced  b)7  bits 
of  cord  or  rope.  The  pockets  were  stuffed  with  papers, 
mangos,  and  a  hunk  of  bread.  A  stump  of  lead-pencil 
was  behind  his  ear.  His  hair,  a  dusty  white,  met  the 
frayed  collar  of  the  coat,  and  through  the  temporary 
gaps  which  he  made  in  its  length  to  cool  his  body,  I  saw 
it  like  a  gnarled  and  mossy  tree.  His  hands  were 
grimy  and  his  nails  black-edged,  but  there  was  intellect 
in  his  eye,  and  a  broken  force  in  his  huddled,  loosed  at- 
titude. He  was  not  decrepit,  or  with  a  trace  of  humil- 


76  MYSTIC  ISLES 

ity,  but  had  the  ease  of  the  philosopher  and  also  his 
detachment.  It  was  plain  he  did  the  best  he  could  with 
his  garb,  and  was  entirely  undisturbed,  and  perhaps 
even  unmindful,  of  its  ludicrousness.  He  was  as  serene 
as  Diogenes  must  have  been  when  he  crawled  naked 
from  his  tub  into  the  sun. 

We  talked  first  of  the  horses  in  the  lagoon  a  dozen 
yards  from  us,  their  grooms  or  their  owners  submerging 
them,  and  squatting  on  the  ground  to  chat  as  the  horses 
wallowed  willingly  in  five  feet  of  salt  water.  We 
agreed  that  the  Tahitians  were  as  bad  drivers  as  the 
Chinese,  and  that  they  were,  wittingly  or  unwittingly, 
cruel  to  their  beasts  of  burden.  This  led  to  a  discussion 
of  native  traits,  and  he  was  caustic  in  his  castigation  of 
the  Tahitians.  He  asked  me  my  name  and  what 
brought  me  to  Tahiti ;  and  when,  wanting  to  be  as  honest- 
spoken  as  he,  I  said,  "Romance,  adventure,"  he  burst 
out  that  I  was  crazy. 

"I  have  been  here  seventeen  years,"  he  said  bitterly 
— "me,  Ivan  Stroganoff,  who  was  once  happy  as  secre- 
tary to  the  governor  of  Irkutsk !  I  was  better  off  when 
I  was  on  the  Merrimac  fighting  the  Monitor,  or  with 
Mosby,  the  guerilla,  than  I  am  in  this  accursed  island. 
I  think  a  man  is  mad  who  can  leave  Tahiti  and  stays 
here.  I  wish  I  could  go  away.  I  would  like  to  die 
elsewhere.  I  am  eighty  years  old,  I  starve  here,  and  I 
sleep  in  a  chicken-coop  in  the  suburbs." 

"You  are  lodged  exactly  as  was  Charlie  Stoddard, 
who  wrote  'South  Sea  Idylls,'  "  I  interposed. 

"They  have  lied  always,  those  writers  about  Tahiti," 
said  Ivan  Stroganoff.  "Melville,  Loti,  Moerenhout, 
Pallander,  your  Stevenson, — I  don't  know  that  Stod- 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  77 

dard, — all  are  meretricious,  with  their  pomp  of  words 
and  no  truth.  I  have  comparisons  to  make  with  other 
nations.  I  am  more  than  sixty  years  a  traveler,  and  I 
am  here  seventeen  years  without  cessation,  in  hell  all  the 
time." 

"You  Russians  always  like  the  French.  How  about 
their  achievements  here?"  I  questioned,  hoping  to  lift 
his  shade  of  melancholy. 

"The  French?"  he  repeated.  "They  are  brigands 
and  weak  governors.  They  have  been  in  Tahiti  four 
generations.  Do  you  want  to  know  how  they  got  hold 
here?  A  monarchy,  a  foolish  Louis,  sent  a  marine  sa- 
vant and  soldier  named  Dumont  D'Urville  to  the  South 
Seas  with  the  casual  orders : 

"  'D'apprivoiser  les  hommes,  et  de  rendre  les  femmes 
un  pen  plus  sauvages;'  to  tame  the  men  and  make  the 
women  a  little  more  savage.  The  French  did  both,  and 
took  all  of  this  part  of  the  world  they  could  find  un- 
seized  by  Europe,  and  tamable,  at  not  too  great  a  shed- 
ding of  French  blood.  They  said  that  it  was  their  duty 
to  restore  Temoana  his  kingdom  in  the  Marquesas 
Islands,  eight  hundred  miles  from  here,  northward. 
Temoana  had  been  a  singer  of  psalms  at  the  Protestant 
mission  in  his  valley  of  Tai-o-hae,  in  the  island  of  Nuka- 
hiva,  a  victim  of  shanghaiers,  a  cook  on  a  whaler,  a 
tattooed  man  in  English  penny  shows,  a  repatriate,  a 
protege  of  the  Catholic  archbishop  of  the  Marquesans, 
and  finally,  through  the  influence  of  the  Roman  church, 
a  king.  He  worked  damned  hard  for  the  French  flag 
and  the  church,  and  the  generous  colonial  bureau  of 
France  paid  his  widow  a  pension  of  ten  dollars  a  month 
until  she  died  of  melancholy  among  the  nuns.  I  knew 


78  MYSTIC  ISLES 

her  and  I  knew  men  who  knew  him.  He  was  given  a 
gorgeous  uniform  of  gold  lace  by  his  promoters,  which 
I  think  killed  him,  though  when  he  sweated,  he  would 
strip  to  his  handsomely  marked  skin  and  sit  naked  in 
the  breeze.  The  queen  never  wore  more  than  a  diaper 
or  a  gown. 

"With  the  Marquesas  Islands  taken,  the  French  war- 
ships came  to  Tahiti.  French  Catholic  priests  had  been 
deported  from  here  because  the  Protestants  were  al- 
ready in  possession,  and  objected  to  competition,  saying 
that  the  priests  were  children  of  Beelzebub,  and  taught 
false  doctrines  and  morals.  The  Queen  of  Tahiti, 
whose  dynasty  the  Protestant  missionaries  had  created, 
advised  the  pope's  men  to  seek  a  heathen  people  not 
already  worshiping  the  true  God.  The  zealous  priests 
who  had  come  with  explicit  commands  to  found  a  mis- 
sion in  Tahiti,  launched  the  curse  of  Rome  upon  the 
king,  the  Protestant  ministers,  and  especially  upon  Mr. 
Pritchard,  the  British  consul  and  the  queen's  physician 
and  spiritual  adviser. 

"Pritchard  had  the  interests  of  England  and  the  Lord 
at  heart,  and  his  whispers  in  the  queen's  ear  sent  the 
earnest  priests  aboard  a  ship  bound  for  a  distant  port. 
They  complained,  and  the  French  admiral  then  arrived 
and  pointed  his  guns  at  the  palace  and  the  Protestant 
mission,  and  demanded  thirty  thousand  dollars  for  the 
insult  to  the  French  flag;  and  for  the  jibe  at  the  pope, 
the  matching  of  every  Protestant  church  in  the  islands 
by  a  Catholic  edifice.  The  queen  had  a  panic  and  fled 
to  Moorea  in  a  canoe.  The  admiral  then  put  Consul 
Pritchard  in  jail  for  ten  days,  and  after  chastening  his 
mood,  put  him  on  an  English  ship  at  sea  homeward 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  79 

bound.  France  and  England  were  showing  their  teeth 
at  each  other  over  more  important  differences,  which 
ended  in  a  revolution  in  Paris  and  a  change  of  kings,  so 
that  the  admiral  had  his  way.  The  queen  came  back, 
the  priests  established  their  mission  and  their  churches, 
and  the  Tahitians  with  any  blood  in  them  went  to  war 
again.  The  French  built  forts  about  the  island,  and 
killed  off  with  their  guns  all  the  natives  they  could  get 
sight  of.  Then  they  took  all  the  other  islands  around 
here  that  England  did  n't  have,  declared  Tahiti  had  to 
be  a  protectorate  in  1843,  and  in  1880  gave  King  Pomare 
Fifth  twelve  thousand  dollars  a  year  to  let  them  annex 
his  kingdom.  You  see,  after  all,  his  crown  was  made 
by  the  British  puritans,  and  taken  from  him  by  the 
French  or  Romish  Church." 

The  aged  Russian  laughed  in  his  huge  whiskers.  He 
fished  in  the  rear  of  his  frock  and  produced  the  stump 
of  a  cigar,  for  which  I  yielded  a  match. 

"I  found  that  on  the  steps  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
bishop's  carriage,  which  was  standing  near  here  an  hour 
ago,"  he  said.  "They  '11  tell  you  that  you  will  burn  in 
hell;  but  they  smoke  here,  and  good  Havana  tobacco." 

"I  think  it 's  a  pity  the  Tahitians  were  n't  left  alone," 
I  asserted. 

He  gave  me  a  look  such  as  Diogenes  might  have 
given  the  man  who  stood  in  his  sunlight.  He  lit  his 
cigar-end,  puffed  it  diligently  for  a  minute,  and  then 
said  arbitrarily: 

"The  Tahitian  is,  first,  a  coward,  afraid  to  fight  the 
white ;  but  if  he  can,  in  a  group  or  by  secret,  kill  or  hurt 
you,  he  will.  He  is  treacherous,  and  the  more  he  pre- 
tends to  be  your  friend,  the  more  he  connives  to  cheat 


80  MYSTIC  ISLES 

you.  I  should  have  said  first  of  all  that  he  is  lazy,  but 
that  is  not  to  be  disputed.  He  was  corrupt  to  begin 
with,  and  religion  accentuates  every  evil  passion  in  him. 
He  is  a  profound  hypocrite,  and  yet  a  puritan  for  ob- 
servance of  the  ceremonies  and  interdictions  of  his  faith. 
He  has  more  guile  than  a  Japanese  guide,  and  in  land 
deals  can  skin  a  Moscow  Jew.  He  will  sell  you  land 
and  get  the  money,  and  later  prove  that  his  father  or 
brother  is  the  real  owner,  and  that  relation  will  do  the 
same,  and  you  will  pay  several  times  for  the  same  land. 
In  the  Paumotus,  where  the  missionaries  are  like  a 
swarm  of  gnats,  this  deception  is  threefold  as  bad." 

"But  the  Tahitians  are  at  least  generous,"  I  broke  in. 

Stroganoff  combed  his  whiskers  with  a  twig  of  the 
flamboyant  tree  under  which  we  sat.  He  glared  at  me. 

"Generous!  If  you  have  money  they  will  overwhelm 
you  with  presents,  looking  for  a  double  return;  but  if 
you  are  poor,  they  will  treat  you  as  dirt  under  their 
feet.  I  know,  for  I  am  poor,  and  I  live  among  them. 
They  are  like  those  mina  birds  here,  which  will  steal  the 
button  off  your  coat  if  you  do  not  guard  it." 

"Does  not  Christianity  improve  them?" 

"No.  The  combats  between  Protestants,  Catholics, 
and  Mormons  ended  all  hope  of  that.  They  are  never 
sincere  except  when  they  become  fanatics,  and  even  then 
they  never  lose  their  native  superstitions.  Beliefs  in 
the  ghosts  of  Tahiti,  the  tupapau,  ihoiho,  and  varua  inot 
are  common  to  all  of  them." 

"My  dear  Mr.  Stroganoff,"  I  expostulated,  "your 
czars  believed  in  icons.  My  grandmother  believed  in 
werewolves  and  banshees,  and  we  burned  blessed  candles 
and  sprinkled  holy  water  in  our  houses  on  All  Souls' 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  81 

night  to  keep  away  demons.  I  have  seen  a  clergyman, 
educated  in  Paris  and  Louvain,  exorcising  devils  with 
bell,  book,  and  candle  in  Maryland,  in  one  of  the  oldest 
and  proudest  cities  of  the  United  States.  I  have  seen 
the  American  Governor- General  of  the  Philippines 
carrying  a  candle  in  a  procession  in  honor  of  a  mannikin 
from  a  shrine  at  Antipole,  near  Manila.  Why,  I  could 
tell  you—" 

"Please,  please,  let  me  talk,"  Ivan  Stroganoff  inter- 
rupted. "What  I  say  is  true,  nevertheless.  The  Ta- 
hitian  has  not  one  good  quality.  He  is  not  to  be  com- 
pared with  the  American  negro  for  any  desirable  trait." 

"Do  you  know  the  negro?"  I  asked. 

The  old  man  grunted.  He  relit  his  cigar,  now  only 
an  inch  long,  and  said : 

"I  was  on  the  Merrimac  when  she  fought  the  Moni- 
tor in  two  engagements.  I  was  a  sailor  on  other  Con- 
federate men-of-war.  I  was  one  of  Colonel  Mosby's 
guerillas,  and  was  wounded  with  them.  I  have  lived 
thirteen  years  in  the  United  States.  I  know  the  coon 
well.  I  fought  to  keep  him  a  slave." 

"You  are  not  an  American?" 

"I  am  a  Russian,  an  anarchist  once,  and  now  I  am 
for  Root  and  Lodge,  the  stand-pats.  I  lived  in  Russia 
in  its  darkest  days,  under  several  czars,  when  your  life 
was  the  forfeit  of  a  wink.  I  was  a  lawyer  there,  a 
politician,  an  intrigant.  I  knew  Bebel  and  Jaures  and 
the  men  before  them.  I  lived  in  Germany  many  years, 
in  France,  in  England,  anywhere,  everywhere.  I  first 
came  to  Xew  York  from  Siberia.  I  was  broke.  The 
Civil  War  was  on.  There  were  agents  of  Lee  and  Jeff 
Davis  in  Xew  York  seeking  sailors.  They  offered  lots 


82  MYSTIC  ISLES 

of  money, — thousands, — and  I  went  along,  smuggled 
into  the  South  by  an  underground  road." 

Stroganoff  threw  away  the  shreds  of  tobacco,  now  a 
mere  fiery  wafer  that  threatened  his  mouth's  seine  of 
silver  strands.  He  put  his  hand  in  his  Prince  Albert 
and  scratched  his  stomach. 

"Mr.  Stroganoff,"  I  queried,  with  a  moral  tide  rising, 
"how  could  you  join  in  a  life-and-death  issue  like  that 
of  the  Civil  War,  and  kill  men  without  hatred  of  their 
cause  in  your  heart?  " 

He  patted  my  shoulder. 

"My  dear  young  American,"  he  replied,  "you  join 
anything,  even  a  sheriff's  posse,  into  which  you  are 
dragged,  and  have  a  bullet  from  the  other  side  slit  your 
ear,  or  a  round  shot  bang  against  your  deck,  and  you  '11 
soon  convince  yourself  that  you  are  in  the  right,  or,  any- 
way, that  your  adversary  is  a  scoundrel.  I  handled  a 
gun  on  the  Merrimac  in  Hampton  Roads  when  that 
cheese-box  of  a  Monitor  rattled  her  solid  shot  on  our 
slippery  sides.  I  was  two  years  in  that  damned  un- 
Civil  War,  and  as  I  started  on  the  Southern  side,  I 
stayed  on  it.  I  left  the  navy  to  go  with  John  Mosby 
and  burn  houses.  When  the  war  was  over,  and  I  re- 
covered from  my  wound,  I  went  to  'Frisco  and  crossed 
to  Siberia,  and  thus  back  to  Moscow.  No,  I  never  was 
an  exile  in  Siberia  or  in  a  Russian  prison.  I  knew  and 
worked  for  the  leaders  of  the  old  Nihilists.  I  was  with 
them  till  I  knew  them,  and  then  I  saw  they  were  selfish 
and  fakers.  I  knew  the  socialist  chiefs  in  France  and 
Germany,  the  fathers  of  the  present  movement  there.  I 
was  red-hot  for  the  cause  until  I  knew  them,  and  I 
quit." 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  83 

He  sat  meditatively  for  a  few  moments. 

"I  'm  all  but  eighty  years  old,"  the  raider  of  the  '60's 
continued  sorrowfully.  "I  work  now  for  Chinese,  pre- 
paring their  mail,  their  custom-house  papers,  and  orders. 
I  scrape  along  like  a  watch-dog  in  a  sausage  factory, 
getting  sufficient  to  eat,  but  fearful  all  the  time  that  the 
job  will  kill  me.  Most  of  the  time  I  live  a  few  kilo- 
meters from  Papeete,  toward  Fa'a,  and  come  in  to  town 
about  steamer-time.  I  sleep  in  the  chicken-coop  or 
anywhere.  I  make  about  forty  francs  a  month."  He 
stamped  upon  the  grass.  "I  take  it  you  are  a  journal- 
ist, and,  do  you  know,  what  is  needed  here  most  is  pub- 
licity. Graft  permeates  the  whole  scheme.  Mind  you, 
there  are  no  secrets.  You  could  not  whisper  anything 
to  a  cocoanut-tree  but  that  the  entire  island  would  know 
it  to-morrow.  But  there  is  no  open  publicity.  Start  a 
newspaper!" 

"In  what  language?"  I  demanded,  interested. 

"Huh?  That's  it.  If  in  French,  only  the  French 
would  read  it;  and  if  in  Tahitian,  the  French  won't 
touch  it ;  and  English  is  known  only  by  the  Chinese  and 
the  few  British  and  Americans  here.  I  hate  that  Ta- 
hitian. I  don't  know  a  word  of  it  after  seventeen  years. 
Say  what  you  will,  Roosevelt  made  them  stand  around. 
I  liked  him  for  many  things ;  but,  after  all,  the  old  order 
must  stand,  and  Root  is  the  boy  for  me.  This  fellow 
Wilson  is  a  regular  pedagogue." 

"But  they  have  newspapers  here?"  I  asked. 

"Newspapers?     They  call  them  that." 

He  stood  up  and  searched  in  the  pockets  of  his 
voluminous  coat,  which  he  opened.  I  saw  that  the  lin- 


84  MYSTIC  ISLES 

ing  was  of  silk,  but  now  worn  and  torn.     He  brought 
out  a  roll  of  papers. 

"Here  is  'La  Tribune  de  Tahiti,'  "  he  said.  "It  is 
edited  by  Jean  Delpit,  the  lawyer  whose  offices  are  next 
to  the  Bellevue  Restaurant.  It 's  a  monthly,  published 
in  San  Francisco,  and  has  a  brief  summary  of  world 
events,  besides  articles  on  the  administrative  affairs  of 
Tahiti.  It 's  against  the  Government.  Then  there  's 
'Le  Liberal,'  a  socialist  journal,  with  Eugene  Brun- 
schwig  editor,  which  pours  hot  shot  into  the  Govern- 
ment. Look  at  his  announcement!  Do  you  under- 
stand that?  He  is  fierce.  He  is  an  anarchist  and 
wants  to  be  bought  up.  Of  course  he  is  attacking  from 
outside  Tahiti. 

"There  is  no  newspaper  printed  here  except  the 
'Journal  Ofnciel'  which,  of  course,  is  not  a  newspaper, 
but  a  gazette  of  governmental  notices,  etc.  The  Gov- 
ernment has  its  own  printing-office,  bu'c  if  these  other, 
the  'Tribune'  and  the  'Liberal,'  had  establishments  here, 
they  would  be  raided  and  closed,  for  they  would  hardly 
be  allowed  to  criticize  the  Government  as  harshly  as 

tf 

they  do.  The  'Tribune'  is  in  French  and  Tahitian,  the 
'Liberal'  and  the  'Journal  Officiel'  in  French.  One 
time  it  was  recommended  that  the  official  paper  might 
be  more  popular  if  it  had  some  fiction  for  the  natives,  so 
they  printed  a  translation  of  'Ali  Baba  and  the  Forty 
Thieves,'  but  everybody  laughed,  so  it  was  dropped. 

"The  Mormons  have  the  best  paper  here.  It  is  a 
monthly,  too.  There  is  plenty  need  here  for  a  fearless 
newspaper.  The  faults,  weaknesses,  and  venality  of 
the  Government  call  for  publicity,  but  I  'm  afraid  the 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  85 

journalist  might  soon  find  himself  in  prison.  You  can 
do  nothing.  The  fault  is  in  this  damned  climate — la 
fievre  du  corail.  Paul  Deschanel,  senator  of  France, 
who  wrote  a  book  on  this  island  without  ever  leaving  his 
chair  in  Paris,  says : 

"In  presence  of  the  apparent  facts  one  is  forced  to  ask  him- 
self if  there  is  not  in  the  climate  of  this  enchanted  Tahiti,  in 
the  soft  air  that  one  breathes,  a  force  sweet  but  invincible  which 
at  length  penetrates  the  soul,  enervates  the  will  and  enfeebles 
all  sense  of  usefulness  or  right,  or  the  least  energy  necessary 
to  make  them  triumph. 

"It  is  this  spirit,  without  any  harmony,  bereft  of  all  real 
cordiality  between  neighbors,  of  family  and  family,  which  one 
must  find  in  the  ambient  air  and  which  is  called  the  coral 
fever." 

"It  torments  these  French,  former  sailors  or  petty 
officials  gone  into  trade  or  speculation,  with  delusions 
and  ambitions  of  grandeur.  There  is  no  remedy.  The 
King  of  Apamama  said  it  all  when  he  divided  the  whites 
into  three  classes,  'First,  him  cheat  a  litty;  second,  him 
cheat  plenty;  and  third,  him  cheat  too  much.' ' 

Stroganoff  got  on  his  feet,  rubbed  his  knees  to  limber 
them,  and  began  to  move  off  slowly  toward  Fa'a,  his 
place  of  abode. 

"But,  Mr.  Stroganoff,"  I  called  to  him,  "you  said  all 
that  about  the  Tahitians,  also." 

The  Russian  octogenarian  drew  an  over-ripe  mango 
from  his  skirt,  and  bit  into  it,  with  dire  results  to  his 
whiskers  and  coat, — it  should  be  eaten  only  in  a  bathtub, 
— and  replied  wearily : 

"I  except  nobody  here." 


CHAPTER  VI 

The  Cerclc  Bougainville — Officialdom  in  Tahiti — My  first  visit  to  the  Bou- 
gainville— Skippers  and  merchants — A  song  and  a  drink — The  flavor 
of  the  South  Seas — Rumors  of  war. 

IN  Papeete  there  were  two  social  clubs,  the  Cercle 
Bougainville  and  the  Cercle  Militaire.  Even  in 
Papeete,  which  has  not  half  as  many  people  as 
work  in  a  certain  building  in  New  York,  there  is  a 
bureaucracy,  and  the  Cercle  Militaire,  in  a  park  near 
the  executive  mansion  on  the  rue  de  Rivoli,  is  its  arca- 
num. Only  members  of  the  Government  may  belong, 
and  a  few  others  whose  proposals  must  be  stamped  by 
the  political  powers.  There  is  a  garden,  with  a  small 
library,  but  not  many  read  in  this  climate,  and  the  at- 
mosphere of  the  Cercle  Militaire  was  tedious.  The  gov- 
ernor himself  and  the  black  procureur  de  la  Republique, 
born  in  Martinique,  the  secretary-general,  naval  officers, 
and  the  file  of  the  upper  office-holders  frequent  the 
shade  of  the  mangos  and  the  palms,  but  themselves  con- 
fessed it  deadly  dull  there.  Bureaucracy  is  ever 
mediocre,  ever  jealous,  and  in  Papeete  the  feuds  among 
the  whites  were  as  bitter  as  in  a  monastery  or  convent. 
Every  man  crouched  to  leap  over  his  fellow,  if  not  by 
position,  at  least  by  acclaim.  None  dared  to  discuss 
political  affairs  openly,  but  nothing  else  was  talked  of. 
It  was  a  round  of  whispered  charges  and  recriminations 
and  audible  compliments.  A  few  jolly  chaps,  doctors 

36 


MYSTIC  ISLES  87 

or  naval  lieutenants,  passed  the  bottle  and  laughed  at 
the  others. 

Every  now  and  then  a  new  governor  supplanted  the 
incumbent,  who  returned  to  France,  and  a  few  of  the 
chief er  officials  were  changed;  but  the  most  of  them 
were  Tahitian  French  by  birth  or  long  residence.  Re- 
publics are  wretched  managers  of  colonies,  and  mon- 
archies brutal  exploiters  of  subject  peoples.  Politics 
controlled  in  the  South  Seas,  as  in  the  Philippines,  In- 
dia, and  Egypt.  Precedence  at  public  gatherings  often 
caused  hatreds.  The  procureur  was  second  in  rank  here, 
the  governor,  of  course,  first,  the  secretary-general 
third,  and  the  attorney-general  fourth.  When  the  sec- 
retary-general was  not  at  functions,  the  wife  of  the  gov- 
ernor must  be  handed  in  to  dinner  and  dances  by  the 
negro  procureur.  This  angered  the  British  and  Ameri- 
can consuls  and  merchants,  and  the  French  inferior  to 
him  in  social  status,  although  the  Martinique  statesman 
was  better  educated  and  more  cultivated  in  manners 
than  they. 

The  indolence  of  mind  and  body  that  few  escape  in 
this  soft,  delicious  air,  the  autocracy  of  the  governing  at 
such  a  distance  from  France,  and  the  calls  of  Paris  for 
the  humble  taxes  of  the  Tahitians,  robbed  the  island  of 
any  but  the  most  pressing  melioration.  The  business  of 
government  in  these  archipelagoes  was  bizarre  comedy- 
drama,  with  Tartarins  at  the  front  of  the  stage,  and  a 
cursing  or  slumbrous  audience. 

Count  Polonsky,  a  Russian-born  Frenchman,  ap- 
peared in  court  to  answer  to  the  charge  of  letting  his 
automobile  engine  run  when  no  one  was  in  the  car.  He 
was  fined  a  franc,  which  he  would  take  from  his  pocket 


MYSTIC  ISLES 

then  and  there,  but  must  wait  many  days  to  pay,  until 
circumlocution  had  its  round,  six  weeks  after  the  engine 
had  been  at  fault.  I  was  assessed  two  sous  duty  on  a 
tooth-brush.  I  reached  for  the  coins. 

"Mais,  non,"  said  the  prepose  de  le  douane,  "pas 
maintenant.  No  hurry.  We  will  inform  you  by  post." 

These  officials  had  pleasing  manners,  as  do  almost  all 
Frenchmen,  and  though  they  uttered  many  sacres 
against  the  home  Government  and  that  of  these  islands, 
they  were  fiercely  chauvinistic  toward  foreigners,  as  are 
all  nationals  abroad  where  jingoism  partakes  of  self- 
aggrandizement.  The  American  consul,  a  new  ap- 
pointee, addressed  the  customs  clerk  in  his  only  tongue, 
lowan,  and  received  no  response.  I  spoke  to  him  in 
French,  and  the  prepose  replied  in  mixed  French  and 
English,  out  of  compliment  to  me.  The  consul  was 
enraged,  considering  himself  and  the  American  eagle 
affronted.  I  interposed,  but  the  customs-man  answered 
coldly  in  English: 

"This  is  a  French  possession,  and  French  is  the  lan- 
guage, or  Tahitian.  I  speak  both.  Why  don't  you? 
You  are  supposedly  an  educated  man." 

The  Stars  and  Stripes  were  unfolded  in  a  breeze  of 
hot  words  that  betrayed  the  consul's  belief  in  the  pre- 
pose's  sinister  ancestry  and  in  eternal  punishment.  No 
entente  cordiale  could  ever  be  cemented  after  that  lin- 
gual blast. 

The  consuls  all  had  honorary  memberships  in  the 
Cercle  Militaire,  and  none  of  them  entered  the  Cercle 
Bougainville,  it  not  being  de  rigueur.  I  had  a  carte 
d'invite  personelle  to  that  club,  and  there  I  went  with 
roused  curiosity  to  hear  the  other  sides  of  questions  al- 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  89 

ready  settled  for  me  by  the  amiable  officials  and  officers 
on  the  rue  de  Rivoli.  I  had  been  warned  against  the 
Cercle  Bougainville  by  staid  pensioners  as  being  the 
resort  of  commoners  and  worse,  of  British  and  Ameri- 
can ruffians,  of  French  vulgarians,  and  of  Chinese  smug- 
glers. This  advice  made  a  seductive  advertisement  of 
the  club  to  me,  anxious  to  know  everything  real  and 
unveiled  about  the  life  here,  and  to  find  a  contrast  to  the 
ennui  of  the  official  temple. 

A  consul  said  to  me:  "Look  out  for  some  of  those 
gamblers  in  that  Bougainville  joint!  They  '11  skin  you 
alive.  They  drink  like  conger-eels." 

M.  Leboucher,  my  fellow-passenger  on  the  Noa-Noa, 
sent  me  the  card  to  the  Jacobin  resort,  and  I  got  in  the 
habit  of  going  there  just  before  the  meat  breakfast  and 
before  dinner.  I  found  that  the  warning  of  the  aris- 
tocratic bureaucrats  was  of  a  piece  with  their  philosophy 
and  manners,  hollow,  hypocritical,  and  calculated  to 
denj-  me  the  only  real  human  companionship  I  could  en- 
dure. From  about  eleven  to  one  o'clock  and  from  five 
until  seven,  and  in  the  evening's,  the  Cercle  Bougainville 
held  more  interesting  and  merry  white  skins  than  the 
remainder  of  Tahiti.  Merchants  and  managers  of  en- 
terprises and  shops,  skippers  of  the  schooners  that  comb 
the  Dangerous  Archipelago  and  the  dark  Marquesas 
for  pearl  and  shell  and  copra,  vanilla-  and  pearl-buyers, 
planters,  and  lesser  bureaucrats,  idlers  or  retired  ad- 
venturers living  in  Tahiti,  and  tourists  made  the  club 
for  a  few  hours  a  day  a  polyglot  exchange  of  current 
topics  between  man  and  man,  a  place  of  initiation  and  of 
judgment  of  business  deals,  a  precious  refuge  against 
smug  bores  and  a  sanctuary  for  refreshment  of  body  and 


90  MYSTIC  ISLES 

soul  with  cooling  drinks.  Naturally,  every  one  played 
cards,  dominoes,  or  dice  for  the  honor  of  signing  the 
chits,  and  it  goes  without  saying  that  one  might  roar  out 
an  oath  against  the  Government  and  go  unscathed. 
Even  in  the  Bougainville  lines  wrere  drawn ;  only  heads  of 
commercial  affairs  were  admitted.  It  was  bourgeois 
absolutely,  but  bosses  could  not  imbibe  and  play  freely 
in  the  presence  of  their  employees  whom  they  might  have 
to  reprimand  severely  for  bad  habits,  nor  scold  them  for 
inattention  to  trade  when  their  employers  spent  precious 
hours  at  ecarte  or  razzle-dazzle. 

The  club  was  within  fifty  feet  of  the  lagoon,  close  to 
the  steamship  quay,  its  broad  verandas  overlooking  the 
fulgent  reef  and  the  quiet  waters  within  it.  In  odd 
hours  one  might  find  Joseph,  the  steward,  angling  on 
the  coral  wall  for  the  black  and  gold  fish,  and  a  shout 
from  the  balcony  would  bring  him  to  the  swift  succor 
of  a  thirsty  member.  During  the  four  hours  before  the 
late  dejeuner  and  dinner,  he  had  incessant  work  to  an- 
swer the  continuous  calls. 

When  Joseph  became  overwhelmed  with  orders  he 
summoned  his  family  from  secret  quarters  in  the  rear, 
and  father,  mother,  and  children  squeezed,  shook,  and 
poured  for  the  impatient  crowd. 

When  the  monthly  mail  between  America  and  Aus- 
tralasia was  in,  few  packs  of  cards  were  sold,  for  every 
one  was  busied  with  letters  and  orders  for  goods.  But 
only  three  or  four  days  a  month  were  so  disturbed,  and 
for  nearly  four  weeks  of  the  month  Papeete  lolled  at 
ease,  with  endless  time  for  games  and  stimulants. 
Leisure,  the  most  valuable  coin  of  humanity  in  the 
tropics,  was  spent  by  white  or  brown  in  pleasure  o>* 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  91 

idleness  with  a  prodigality  that  would  have  made  Samuel 
Smiles  weep. 

The  entrance  to  the  Cercle  Bougainville  was  very 
plain,  with  no  name-plate,  as  had  the  Militaire, — a  mere 
hole  in  the  front  wall  of  Leboucher's  large  furniture 
shop.  One  could  be  going  along  the  street  in  full  view 
of  important  and  respectable  people,  and  suddenly  dis- 
appear. A  few  steep  stairs,  a  quick  turn,  and  one  was 
on  the  broad  balcony,  with  easy-chairs  and  firm  tables, 
and  bells  to  hand  for  Joseph's  ear. 

In  a  room  off  the  balcony  there  was  a  billiard-table, 
the  cloth  patched  or  missing  in  many  spots,  and  with 
cues  whose  tips  had  Jong  since  succumbed  to  perpetual 
moisture.  A  few  old  French  books  were  on  a  shelf,  and 
a  naughty  review  or  two  of  Paris  on  a  dusty  table.  Un- 
doubtedly, this  club  had  begun  as  a  mariner's  association, 
and  there  was  yet  a  decided  flavor  of  the  sea  about  it. 
Indeed,  all  Tahiti  was  of  the  sea,  and  all  but  the  mass 
of  natives  who  stayed  in  their  little  homes  were  at  times 
sailors,  and  all  whites  passengers  on  long  voyages. 
Everything  paid  tribute  to  the  vast  ocean,  and  all  these 
men  had  an  air  of  ships  and  the  dangers  of  the  waves. 

Nautical  almanacs,  charts,  and  a  barometer  were  con- 
spicuous, and  often  were  laid  beside  the  social  glasses 
for  proof  in  hot  arguments.  Occasionally  an  old 
Chinese  or  two,  financiers,  pearl-dealers,  labor  bosses, 
or  merchants,  drained  a  glass  of  eau  de  vie  and  smoked 
a  cigarette  there.  One  sensed  an  atmosphere  of  mys- 
tery, of  secret  arrangements  between  traders,  or  hard 
endeavors  for  circumvention  of  competitors  in  the  busi- 
ness of  the  dispersed  islands  of  French  Oceania. 

A  delightful  incident  enlivened  my  first  visit,  and 


92  MYSTIC  ISLES 

gave  me  an  acquaintance  with  a  group  of  habitues. 
When  I  reached  the  balcony  I  saw  a  group  of  French- 
men at  a  table  who  were  singing  at  the  top  of  their 
voices.  I  sat  down  at  the  farthest  table  and  ordered 
a  Dr.  Funk. 

I  did  not  look  at  them,  for  I  felt  d e  trop;  but  suddenly 
I  heard  them  humming  the  air  of  "John  Brown's  Body," 
and  singing  fugitive  words. 

"Grory,  grory,  harreruah!"  came  to  my  ears,  and 
later,  "Wayd'  'un  S'  ut '  in  le  land  de  cottin." 

They  were  making  fun  of  me  I  thought,  and  turned 
my  head  away.  It  would  not  do  to  get  angry  with  half 
a  dozen  jovial  Frenchmen. 

"All  Coons  Look  alike  to  Me,"  I  recognized,  though 
they  sang  but  fragments  of  the  text. 

Through  a  corner  of  my  eye  I  saw  them  all  anxiously 
staring  at  me;  then  one  of  the  merrymakers  came  over 
to  me.  I  had  a  fleeting  thought  of  a  row  before  he 
bowed  low  and  said  in  English : 

"If  you  please,  we  make  good  time,  we  sing  your 
songs,  and  must  be  happy  to  drink  with  you." 

He  announced  himself  as  M.  Edmond  Brault,  chief 
clerk  of  the  office  of  the  secretary-general,  fresh-faced, 
glowing  and  with  a  soul  for  music  and  for  joy.  He  was 
so  smiling,  so  ingenuous,  that  to  refuse  him  would  have 
been  rank  discourtesy.  I  joined  the  group. 

"I  am  twenty-eight  times  married  this  day,"  said  M. 
Brault,  "and  my  friends  and  I  make  very  happy." 

The  good  husband  was  rejoicing  on  his  wedding  anni- 
versary, and  I  could  but  accept  the  champagne  he  or- 
dered. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  93 

"I  am  great  satisfaction  to  drink  you,"  he  said.  "My 
friends  drink  my  wife  and  me." 

We  toasted  his  admirable  wife,  wre  toasted  the  two  re- 
publics; Lafayette,  Rochambeau,  and  Chateaubriand. 

<eAli,  le  biftek!"  said  M.  Leboucher. 

We  toasted  Thomas  Jefferson  and  Benjamin  Frank- 
lin, and  then  we  sang  for  an  hour.  M.  Brault  was  the 
leading  composer  of  Tahiti.  He  was  the  creator  of 
Tahitian  melodies,  as  Kappelmcister  Berger  was  of 
Hawaiian.  For  our  delectation  Brault  sang  ten  of  his 
songs  between  toasts.  I  liked  best  "Le  Bon  Roi 
Pomare"  the  words  of  one  of  the  many  stanzas  being: 

H  etait  un  excellent  roi 

Dont  on  ne  dit  rien  dans  1'histoire, 

Qui  ne  connaissait  qu'une  Loi: 

Celle  de  chanter,  rire,  et  boire. 

Fervent  disciple  de  Bacchus 

II  glorifiait  sa  puissance, 

Puis,  sacrifiait  a  Venus 

Les  loisirs  de  son  existence. 
REFRAIN  : 

Tou jours  joyeux,  d'humeur  gauloise, 
Et  parfois  meme  un  peu  grivoise 
Le  genereux  Roi  Pomare 
Par  son  peuple  est  fort  regrette. 
S'il  avait  eu  de  1'eloquence 
II  aurait  gouverne  la  France! 
Mais  nos  regrets  sont  superflus ; 
Puisqu'il  est  mort,  n'en  parlons  plus ! 

"Ah,  he  was  a  chic  type,  that  last  King  of  Tahiti,'* 
said  M.  Brault,  who  had  written  so  many  praiseful, 
merry  verses  about  him.  "He  would  have  a  hula  about 


94  MYSTIC  ISLES 

him  all  the  time.  He  loved  the  national  dance.  He 
would  sit  or  lie  and  drink  all  day  and  night.  He  loved 
to  see  young  people  drink  and  enjoy  themselves.  Ah, 
those  were  gay  times!  Dancing  the  nights  away. 
Every  one  crowned  with  flowers,  and  rum  and  cham- 
pagne like  the  falls  of  Fautaua.  The  good  king  Pom- 
are  would  keep  up  the  upaupa,  the  hula  dance,  for  a 
week  at  a  time,  until  they  were  nearly  all  dead  from 
drink  and  fatigue.  Mon  dieu!  La  vie  est  triste  main- 
tenant." 

Before  we  parted  we  sang  the  "Marseillaise"  and  the 
"Star-Spangled  Banner."  Xobody  knew  the  words,  I 
least  of  any;  so  we  la-la-la'd  through  it,  and  when  we 
parted  for  luncheon,  we  went  down  the  crooked  stair- 
way arm  in  arm,  still  giving  forth  snatches  of  "Le  Bon 
Roi  Pomare"  in  honor  of  our  host: 

Mais,  s'il  aimait  tant  les  plaisirs, 
Lcs  chants  joyeux,  la  vie  en  rose, 
Le  plus  ardent  de  ses  desirs, 
Pour  lui  la  plus  heurcuse  chose, 
Fut  toujours  que  Phumanite 
Regnat  au  sein  de  son  Royaume; 
De  racme  quc  1'Egalite 
Sous  son  modeste  toit  de  chaume. 

Hallman,  with  whom  I  journeyed  on  the  Xoa-Xoa, 
dropped  into  the  Cercle  Bougainville  occasionally,  but 
he  was  ordinarily  too  much  occupied  with  his  schemes  of 
trade.  Besides,  he  had  only  one  absorbing  vice  other 
than  business,  and  with  merely  wine  and  song  to  be 
found  at  the  club,  Hallman  went  there  but  seldom,  and 
only  to  talk  about  pearl-shell,  copra,  and  the  profits  of 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  95 

schooner  voyages.  However,  through  him  I  met  an- 
other group  who  spoke  English,  and  who  were  not  of 
Latin  blood.  They  were  Llewellyn,  an  islander — 
Welsh  and  Tahitian;  Landers,  a  New  Zealander; 
Pincher,  an  Englishman ;  David,  McHenry,  and  Brown, 
Americans;  Count  Polonsky,  the  Russo-Frenchman 
who  was  fined  a  franc;  and  several  captains  of  vessels 
who  sailed  between  Tahiti  and  the  Pacific  coast  of  the 
United  States  or  in  these  latitudes. 

The  Noa-Noa  was  overdue  from  New  Zealand,  by 
way  of  Raratonga,  and  her  tardiness  was  the  chief  sub- 
ject of  conversation  at  our  first  meeting.  A  hundred 
times  a  day  was  the  semaphore  on  the  hill  spied  at  for  the 
signal  of  the  Noa-Noas  sighting.  High  up  on  the  ex- 
pansive green  slope  which  rises  a  few  hundred  feet  be- 
hind the  Tiare  Hotel  is  a  white  pole,  and  on  this  are 
hung  various  objects  which  tell  the  people  of  Papeete 
that  a  vessel  is  within  view  of  the  ancient  sentinel  of  the 
mount.  An  elaborate  code  in  the  houses  of  all  per- 
sons of  importance,  and  in  all  stores  and  clubs,  inter- 
prets these  symbols.  The  merchants  depended  to  a 
considerable  extent  upon  this  monthly  liner  between 
San  Francisco  and  Wellington  and  way  ports,  and  all 
were  interested  in  the  mail  and  food  supplies  expected 
by  the  Noa-Noa.  Cablegrams  sent  from  any  part  of 
the  world  to  New  Zealand  or  San  Francisco  were  for- 
warded by  mail  on  these  steamships.  Tahiti  was  en- 
tirely cut  off  from  the  great  continents  except  by  vessel. 
.There  was  no  cable,  and  no  wireless,  on  this  island,  nor 
even  at  the  British  island  of  Raratonga,  two  days' 
steaming  from  Papeete.  The  steamships  had  wireless 
systems,  and  kept  in  communication  with  San  Francisco 


96  MYSTIC  ISLES 

or  with  Xew  Zealand  ports  for  a  few  days  after  de- 
parture. 

There  were  many  guesses  at  the  cause  of  the  delay. 

"Xothing  but  war!"  said  the  French  post-office  clerk 
who  sat  at  another  table,  with  his  glass  of  Pernoud. 
"Germany  and  England  have  come  to  blows.  Now  that 
accursed  nation  of  beer-swillers  will  get  their  lesson." 

The  subject  was  seriously  discussed,  the  armaments 
of  the  two  powers  quoted,  and  the  certainty  of  Ger- 
many's defeat  predicted,  the  Frenchman  asserting  vehe- 
mently that  France  would  aid  England  if  necessary,  or 
to  get  back  Alsace-Lorraine.  There  were  gatherings 
all  over  Papeete,  the  war  rumor  having  been  made  an 
alleged  certainty  by  some  inexplicable  communication 
to  an  unnamed  merchant. 

The  natives  hoped  fervently  that  the  war  was  between 
France  and  Germany,  and  that  France  would  be  de- 
feated. After  generations  of  rule  by  France,  the  van- 
quished still  felt  an  aversion  to  their  conquerors  here, 
as  in  the  Holy  Land  when  Herod  ruled. 

"I  hope  France  get  his,"  said  a  chief,  aside,  to  me. 

The  mail's  delay  upset  all  business.  Letters  closed 
on  the  day  the  liner  was  expected  were  reopened.  For 
three  days  the  girls  at  Lovaina's  had  worn  their  best 
peignoirs,  and  several  times  donned  shoes  and  stockings 
to  go  to  the  quay.  Passengers  for  San  Francisco  who 
had  packed  their  trunks  had  unpacked  them.  The  air 
of  expectancy  which  Papeete  wore  for  a  day  or  two  be- 
fore steamer-day  had  been  so  heated  by  postponement 
that  nerves  came  to  the  surface. 

Tahiti  was  a  place  of  no  exact  knowledge.  Few  resi- 
dents knew  the  names  of  the  streets.  Some  of  the 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  97 

larger  business  houses  had  no  signs  to  indicate  the  firms* 
names  or  what  they  sold.  Hardly  any  one  knew  the 
names  of  the  trees  or  the  flowers  or  fishes  or  shells. 

A  story  once  told,  even  facts  thoroughly  well  known, 
changed  with  each  repetition.  A  month  after  an  oc- 
currence one  might  search  in  vain  for  the  actuality.  It 
was  more  difficult  to  learn  truthful  details  than  any- 
where I  had  been.  The  French  are  niggardly  of  pub- 
lications concerning  Tahiti.  An  almanac  once  a  year 
contained  a  few  figures  and  facts  of  interest,  but  with  no 
newspapers  within  thousands  of  miles,  every  person 
was  his  own  journal,  and  prejudices  and  interest  dic- 
tated all  oral  records. 

McHenry  hushed  war  reports  to  talk  about  Brown, 
an  American  merchant  who  had  left  the  club  a  moment 
before,  after  a  Bourbon  straight  alone  at  the  bar.  Mc- 
Henry was  a  trader,  mariner,  adventurer,  gambler,  and 
boaster.  Rough  and  ready,  witty,  profane,  and  ob- 
scene, he  bubbled  over  with  tales  of  reef  and  sea,  of 
women  and  men  he  had  met,  of  lawless  tricks  on  natives, 
of  storm  and  starvation,  and  of  his  claimed  illicit  loves. 
Loud-mouthed,  bullet-headed,  beady-eyed,  a  chunk  of 
rank  flesh  shaped  by  a  hundred  sordid  deeds,  he  must  get 
the  center  of  attention  by  any  hazard. 

"Brown's  purty  stuck  up  now,"  he  said  acridly.  "I 
remember  the  time  when  he  did  n't  have  a  pot  to  cook  in. 
He  had  thirty  Chile  dollars  a  month  wages.  We  come 
on  the  beach  the  same  day  in  the  same  ship.  His  shoes 
were  busted  out,  and  he  was  crazy  to  get  money  for  a 
new  girl  he  had.  There  was  a  Chink  had  eighteen  tins 
of  vanilla-beans  wrorth  about  two  hundred  American  dol- 
lars each.  He  got  the  Chink  to  believe  he  could  handle 


98  MYSTIC  ISLES 

the  vanilla  for  him,  and  got  hold  of  it,  and  then  out  by 
the  vegetable  garden  Brown  hit  the  poor  devil  of  a 
Chink  over  the  nut  with  a  club." 

McHenry  got  up  from  the  table,  and  with  Llew- 
ellyn's walking-stick  showed  exactly  how  the  blow 
was  struck.  He  brought  down  the  cane  so  viciously 
against  the  edge  of  the  table  that  he  spilled  our  rum 
punches. 

"Mac,"  exclaimed  Llewellyn,  testily,  as  he  shot  him 
a  hot  glance  from  the  melancholy  eyes  under  his  black 
thatch  of  brows,  "behave  yourself!  You  know  you  're 
lying." 

McHenry  laughed  sourly,  and  went  on: 

"I  was  chums  with  Brown  then,  and  when  I  caught  up 
to  him, — I  was  walkin'  behind  them, — he  asked  me  to 
see  if  the  Chink  was  dead.  I  went  back  to  where  he 
had  tumbled  him.  He  was  layin'  on  his  back  in  a  kind 
o'  ditch,  and  he  was  white  instead  o'  yeller.  He  was 
white  as  Lyin'  Bill's  schooner.  How  would  you  'a* 
done?  Well,  to  protect  that  dirty  pup  Brown,  I  cov- 
ered him  over  with  leaves  from  head  to  foot — big  bread- 
fruit- and  cocoanut-leaves.  He  never  showed  up  again, 
and  Brown  had  the  vanilla.  That's  how  he  got  his 
start,  and,  so  help  me  God!  I  never  got  a  franc  from  the 
business." 

There  was  venom  in  McHenry's  tone,  and  he  looked  at 
me,  the  newcomer,  to  see  what  impression  he  had  made. 
The  others  said  not  a  word  of  comment,  and  it  may 
have  been  an  often-told  tale  by  him.  He  had  emptied 
his  glass  of  the  potent  Martinique  rum  four  or  five  times. 

"Was  the  Chinaman  sure  dead  when  you  put  the 


99 

leaves  over  him?"  I  asked,  influenced  by  his  staring  eyes. 

McHenry  grinned  foully. 

"Aye,  man,  you  want  too  much,"  he  replied.  "I  say 
his  face  was  white,  and  he  was  on  his  back  in  the  marsh. 
If  he  was  alive,  the  leaves  did  n't  finish  him,  and  if  he  was 
croaked,  it  did  n't  matter.  I  was  obligin'  a  friend. 
You  'd  have  done  as  much."  He  took  up  his  glass  and 
muttered  dramatically,  "A  few  leaves  for  a  friend." 

I  shuddered,  but  Landers  leaned  over  the  table  and 
said  to  me,  sotto  voce: 

"McHenry 's  tellin'  his  usual  bloody  lie.  Brown  got 
the  vanilla  all  right,  but  what  he  did  was  to  have  the 
bloomin'  Chink  consign  it  to  him  proper',  and  not  give 
him  a  receipt.  Then  he  denied  all  knowledge  of  it,  and 
it  bein'  all  the  bleedin'  Chinaman  had,  he  died  of  a 
broken  heart — with  maybe  too  many  pipes  of  opium  to 
help  him  on  a  bit.  McHenry  and  Pincher  are  terrible 
liars.  They  call  Pincher  'Lyin'  Bill,'  though  I  'd  take 
his  word  in  trade  or  about  schooners  any  day." 

I  had  been  introduced  to  a  Doctor  Funk  by  Count 
Polonsky,  who  told  me  it  was  made  of  a  portion  of 
absinthe,  a  dash  of  grenadine, — a  syrup  of  the  pome- 
granate fruit, — the  juice  of  two  limes,  and  half  a  pint 
of  siphon  water.  Dr.  Funk  of  .Samoa,  who  had  been 
a  physician  to  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  had  left  the 
receipt  for  the  concoction  when  he  was  a  guest  of  the 
club.  One  paid  half  a  franc  for  it,  and  it  would  restore 
self-respect  and  interest  in  one's  surroundings  when 
even  Tahiti  rum  failed. 

"Zat  was  ze  drink  I  mix  for  Paul  Gauguin,  ze  peintre 
sauvage,  here  before  he  go  to  die  in  Ics  isles  Marquises" 


100  MYSTIC  ISLES 

remarked  Levy,  the  millionaire  pearl-buyer,  as  he  stood 
by  the  table  to  be  introduced  to  me. 

"Absinthe  seul  he  general'  take,"  said  Joseph,  the 
steward. 

"I  bid  fifty  thousand  francs  for  one  of  Gauguin's 
paintings  in  Paris  last  year,"  Count  Polonsky  said  as 
he  claimed  his  game  of  ecarte  against  Tati,  the  chief  of 
Papara  district.  "I  failed  to  get  it,  too.  I  bought 
many  here  for  a  few  thousand  francs  each  before  that." 

"Blow  me!"  cried  Pincher,  the  skipper  of  the  Morn- 
ing Star.  "'E  was  a  bleedin'  ijit.  I  fetched  'im  ab- 
sinthe many  a  time  in  Atuona.  'E  said  Dr.  Funk  was  a 
bloomin'  ass  for  inventin'  a  drink  that  spoiled  good 
Pernoud  with  water.  'E  was  a  rare  un.  'E  was  like 
Stevenson  'at  wrote  'Treasure  Island.'  Comes  into  my 
pub  in  Taiohae  in  the  Marquesas  Islands  did  Steven- 
son off'n  his  little  Casco,  and  says  he,  "Ave  ye  any 
whisky,'  'e  says,  "at  'as  n't  been  watered?  These  South 
Seas  appear  to  'ave  flooded  every  bloomin'  gallon,'  'e 
says.  This  painter  Gauguin  was  n't  such  good  com- 
pany as  Stevenson,  because  'e  parleyvoud,  but  'e  was  a 
bloody  worker  with  'is  brushes  at  Atuona.  'E  was 
cuttin'  wood  or  paintin'  all  the  time." 

"He  was  a  damn'  fool,"  said  Hallman,  who  had  come 
in  to  the  Cercle  to  take  away  Captain  Pincher.  "I  lived 
close  to  him  at  Atuona  all  the  time  he  was  there  till  he 
died.  He  was  bughouse.  I  don't  know  much  about 
painting,  but  if  you  call  that  crazy  stuff  of  Gauguin's 
proper  painting,  then  I  'm  a  furbelowed  clam." 

"Eh  bien"  Count  Polonsky  said,  with  a  smile  of  the 
man  of  superior  knowledge,  "he  is  the  greatest  painter 
of  this  period,  and  his  pictures  are  bringing  high  prices 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  101 

now,  and  will  bring  the  highest  pretty  soon.     I  have 
bought  every  one  I  could  to  hold  for  a  raise." 

Polonsky  was  a  study  in  sheeny  hues.  He  was 
twenty-seven,  his  black  and  naturally  curled  hair  was 
very  thin,  there  were  eight  or  nine  teeth  that  answered 
no  call  from  his  meat,  and  he  wore  in  his  right  eye- 
socket  a  round  glass,  with  no  rim  or  string,  held  by  a 
puckering  of  cheek  and  brow,  giving  him  a  quizzical, 
stage-like  stare,  and  twisting  his  nose  into  a  ripple  of 
tiny  wrinkles.  He  weighed,  say,  one  hundred  pounds 
or  less,  was  bent,  but  with  a  fresh  complexion  and  active 
step.  I  saw  him  rise  naked  from  his  cot  one  morning, 
and  the  first  thing  he  put  on  was  the  rimless  monocle. 
The  natives,  who  name  every  one,  called  him  "Matati- 
tialioe"  "the  one-windowed  man."  He  had  journeyed 
about  the  world,  poked  into  some  queer  places,  and  in 
Japan  had  himself  tattooed.  On  his  narrow  chest  he 
had  a  terrible  legendary  god  of  Nippon,  and  on  his 
arms  a  cock  and  a  skeleton,  the  latter  with  a  fan 
and  a  lantern.  On  his  belly  was  limned  a  nude  woman. 
He  had  certain  other  decorations  the  fame  of  which  had 
been  bruited  wide  so  that  a  keen  curiosity  existed  to  see 
them,  and  they  were  discussed  in  whispers  by  white 
femininity  and  with  many  ffAues!"  of  astonishment  by 
the  brown.  They  were  Pompeiian  friezes  in  their  un- 
conventionality  of  subject  and  treatment. 

Llewellyn,  McHenry,  David,  and  I  accompanied  the 
count  to  his  residence  on  the  outskirts  of  Papeete  to 
taste  a  vintage  of  Burgundy  he  had  sent  him  from 
Beaune.  Like  most  modern  houses  in  Tahiti,  his  was 
solely  utilitarian,  and  was  built  by  a  former  American 
consul.  It  exactly  ministered  to  the  comforts  of  a  de- 


102  MYSTIC  ISLES 

manding  European  exquisite.  The  house  was  iramed 
in  wide  verandas,  and  was  in  a  magnificent  grove  of 
cocoanut-trees  affording  beauty  and  shade,  with  exten- 
sive fields  of  sugar-cane  on  the  other  side  of  the  road, 
and  a  glimpse  of  the  beach  and  lagoon  a  little  distance 
away.  A  singing  brook  ran  past  the  door.  The  bed- 
rooms were  large  and  open  to  every  breeze,  and  the 
tables  for  dining  and  amusement  mostly  set  upon  the 
verandas. 

Polonsky's  toilet-table  was  covered  with  gold  boxes 
and  bottles  and  brushes ;  scents  and  powders  and  pastes. 
If  he  moved  out,  Gaby  de  Lys  might  have  moved  in  and 
lacked  nothing.  He  was  a  boulevardier,  his  clothes 
from  Paris,  conforming  not  at  all  to  the  sartorial  cus- 
toms of  Tahiti,  and  his  varnished  boots  and  alpine  hat, 
with  his  saffron  automobile,  marked  him  as  a  person.  In 
that  he  resembled  Higby,  an  Englishman  in  Papeete, 
who  wore  the  evening  dress  of  London  whenever  a 
steamship  came  in,  though  it  might  be  noon,  and  on  the 
king's  birthday  and  other  British  feasts  put  it  on  when 
he  awoke.  He  was  the  only  man  who  went  to  dinner 
at  the  Tiare  in  the  funeral  garb  of  society.  He  said  he 
was  setting  up  a  proper  standard  in  Tahiti.  It  was  sus- 
pected really  that  he  was  short  of  clothes,  with  perhaps 
only  one  or  two  cotton  suits,  and  that  when  those  were 
soiled  he  had  to  resort  to  full  dress  during  the  launder- 
ing. 

While  David  and  I  inspected  the  house  and  grounds, 
McHenry  and  Llewellyn  sat  at  the  wine.  Polon- 
sky  had  a  curious  and  wisely  chosen  household.  His 
butler  was  a  Javanese,  his  chef  a  Quan-tung  Chinese, 
his  valet  a  Japanese,  his  chambermaid  a  Martinique 


103 

negress,  and  his  chauffeur  an  American  expert.  These 
had  nothing  in  common  and  could  not  ally  themselves 
to  cheat  him,  he  said. 

As  I  came  back  to  the  front  veranda  McHenry  and 
Llewellyn  were  talking  excitedly. 

"I  Ve  had  my  old  lady  nineteen  years,"  said  Mc- 
Henry, boastfully,  "and  she  would  n't  speak  to  me  if 
she  met  me  on  the  streets  of  Papeete.  She  would  n't 
dare  to  in  public  until  I  gave  her  the  high  sign.  You  're 
a  bloody  fool  makin'  equals  of  the  natives,  and  throwin' 
away  money  on  those  cinema  girls  the  way  you  do." 

This  incensed  Llewellyn,  who  was  of  chiefly  Tahitian 
blood,  and  who  claimed  kings  of  Wales  as  his  ancestors. 
Although  -extremely  aristocratic  in  his  attitude  toward 
strangers,  his  native  strain  made  him  resent  McHenry's 
rascally  arrogance  as  a  reflection  upon  his  mother's  race. 

"Shut  up,  Mac!"  he  half  shouted.  "You  talk  too 
much.  If  it  had  n't  been  for  that  same  old  lady  of  yours, 
you  'd  have  died  of  delirium-tremens  or  fallen  into  the 
sea  long  ago." 

"Aye,"  said  the  trader,  meditatively,  "that  vahine 
has  saved  my  life,  but  I'm  not  goin'  to  sacrifice  my  dig- 
nity as  a  white  man.  If  ye  let  go  everything,  the  damn' 
natives  '11  walk  over  ye,  and  ye  '11  make  nothin'  out  o' 
them." 

Lovaina  had  occasionally  called  me  Dixey,  and  had 
explained  that  I  was  the  "perfec'  im'ge"  of  a  man  of 
that  name,  and  that  he  owned  a  little  cutter  which  traded 
to  Raiaroa,  on  which  atoll  he  lived.  I  walked  like  him, 
was  of  the  same  size,  and  had  the  "same  kin'  funny 
face." 

She  piqued  my  curiosity,  and  so  when  I  found  him  at 


104  MYSTIC  ISLES 

the  round  table  of  the  Polonsky-Llewellyn  group  at  the 
Cercle  Bougainville,  I  looked  him  over  narrowly.  His 
name  was  Dixon, — Lovaina  never  got  a  name  right, — 
an  Englishman,  a  wanderer,  with  an  Eton  schooling, 
short,  solidly  built,  with  a  bluff  jaw  and  a  keen,  blue 
eye.  He  was  not  good-looking.  He  had  learned  the 
nickname  given  me,  and  was  in  such  a  happy  frame  of 
mind  that  he  ordered  drinks  for  the  club. 

"I  'm  lucky  to  be  here  at  all,"  he  said  seriously.  "I 
have  a  seven-ton  cutter,  and  left  the  Paumotus  four 
days  ago  for  Papeete.  We  had  eight  tons  of  copra  in 
the  hold,  filling  it  up  within  a  foot  of  the  hatch.  Eight 
miles  off  Point  Venus  the  night  before  last,  at  eleven 
o'clock,  we  hoped  for  a  bit  of  wind  to  reach  port  by 
morning.  It  was  calm,  and  we  were  all  asleep  but  the 
man  at  the  wheel,  when  a  waterspout  came  right  out 
of  the  clear  sky, — so  the  steersman  said, — and  struck 
us  hard.  We  were  swamped  in  a  minute.  The  water 
fell  on  us  like  your  Niagara.  Christ !  We  gave  up  for 
gone,  all  of  us,  the  other  five  all  kanakas.  We  heeled 
over  until  the  deck  was  under  water, — of  course  we  've 
got  no  freeboard  at  all, — and  suddenly  a  gale  sprung 
up.  We  pulled  in  the  canvas,  but  to  no  purpose.  Un- 
der a  bare  pole  we  seemed  every  minute  to  be  going 
under  completely.  We  have  no  cabin,  and  all  we  could 
do  was  to  lay  flat  on  the  deck  in  the  water,  and  hold  on 
to  anything  we  could  grab.  The  natives  prayed,  by 
God !  They  're  Catholics,  and  they  remembered  it  then. 
The  mate  wanted  to  throw  the  copra  overboard.  I  was 
willing,  but  I  said,  'What  for?  We  're  dead  men,  and 
it  '11  do  no  good.  She  can't  stand  up  even  empty.'  We 
stayed  swamped  that  way  all  night,  expecting  to  be 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  105 

drowned  any  minute,  and  I  myself  said  to  the  Lord — I 
was  a  chorister  once — that  if  I  had  done  anything  wrong 
in  my  life,  I  was  sorry — " 

"But  you  knew  you  had?"  I  interposed. 

"Of  course  I  did,  but  I  was  n't  going  to  rub  it  in  on 
myself  in  that  fix.  I  knew  He  knew  all  about  me.  My 
father  was  a  curate  in  Devon.  Well,  we  pulled  through 
all  right,  because  here  I  am,  and  the  copra  's  on  the  dock. 
What  do  you  think — the  wind  died  away  completely,  and 
we  had  to  sweep  in  to  Papeete." 

I  touched  his  glass  with  mine.  He  was  very  ingen- 
uous, a  four-square  man. 

"Did  the  prayers  have  anything  to  do  with  your  pull- 
ing through  and  saving  the  copra?"  I  questioned,  curi- 
ous. 

"I  don't  know.  I  did  n't  make  any  fixed  promises. 
I  was  bloody  well  scared,  and  I  meant  what  I  said  about 
being  sorry.  But  that 's  all  gone.  Let 's  drink  this  up 
and  have  another.  Joseph!" 

Helas!  the  waterspout  did  not  harm  my  twin  half  so 
much  as  the  rum-spout,  which  soon  had  him  three  sheets 
in  the  wind  and  his  rudder  unmanageable.  When  I 
went  down  the  rue  de  Rivoli  that  night  to  the  Cercle 
Militaire,  he  had  drifted  into  the  Cocoanut  House,  and 
was  sitting  on  a  fallen  tree  telling  of  the  storm  to  a 
woman  in  a  scarlet  gown  with  a  hibiscus-blossom  in  her 
hair.  I  got  him  by  the  arm,  and  with  an  expressed  de- 
sire to  know  more  of  the  details  of  the  escape,  steered 
him  to  the  Annexe,  where  he  had  a  room. 

A  good  sort  was  Dixon.  He  had  in  the  Paumotus  a 
little  store,  a  dark  mother-girl  of  Raiaroa  who  waited 
for  him,  and  a  new  baby.  He  had  been  only  a  year  in 


106  MYSTIC  ISLES 

the  group.     He  referred  to  "my  family"  with  honest 
pride. 

The  captains  of  the  Lurline  and  the  O.  M.  Kellogg 
were  at  the  club.  The  Lurline  was  twenty-seven  years 
old,  and  the  Kellogg,  too,  high  up  in  her  teens,  if  not 
twenties.  Their  skippers  were  Americans,  the  Kel- 
logg''s  master  as  dark  as  a  negro,  burned  by  thirty  years 
of  tropical  sun. 

"I  used  to  live  in  Hawaii  in  the  eighties,"  he  said.  "I 
used  to  pass  the  pipe  there  in  those  days.  There'd  be 
only  one  pipe  among  a  dozen  kanakas,  and  each  had  a 
draw  or  so  in  turn.  They  have  that  custom  in  the  Mar- 
quesas, too,  and  so  had  the  American  Indians." 

I  walked  with  the  Kellogg's  skipper  to  his  vessel, 
moored  close  to  the  quay  in  front  of  the  club.  He  gave 
an  order  to  the  mate,  who  told  him  to  go  to  sheol.  The 
mate  had  been  ashore. 

"Come  aboard,"  cried  the  mate,  "and  I  will  knock 
your  block  off." 

The  whole  waterfront  heard  the  challenge.  Stores 
were  deserted  to  witness  the  imminent  fight. 

The  dark-faced  captain  ascended  the  gang-plank,  and 
walked  to  the  forecastle  head,  where  the  mate  was  di- 
recting the  making  taut  a  line. 

"Now,"  said  the  skipper,  a  foot  from  the  mate, 
"knock!" 

The  mate  hesitated.  That  would  be  a  crime;  he 
would  go  to  jail  and  the  captain  would  be  delighted. 

The  master  taunted  him : 

"Knock  my  block  off!  Touch  my  block,  and  I  '11 
whip  you  so  your  mother  would  n't  know  you,  you  dirty, 
drunken,  son  of  a  sea-cook!" 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  107 

The  mate  looked  at  him  angrily,  but  uncertainly.  He 
heard  the  laughter  and  the  cheers  of  the  bystanders  on 
the  quay  and  in  the  embowered  street.  He  looked  down 
at  the  deck,  and  he  caught  sight  of  a  capstan-bar,  which 
he  gazed  at  longingly.  Any  blow  would  send  him  to 
prison,  but  why  not  for  a  sheep  instead  of  a  lamb? 

He  hesitated,  and  lifted  his  eyes  to  the  black  brow  of 
the  skipper,  lowering  within  touch. 

"Make  fast  your  line  about  that  cannon!"  said  the 
master,  sharply. 

The  sailors  waited  joyfully  for  the  fray,  and  the  Rara- 
tonga  stevedores  on  other  vessels  stopped  their  work. 
But  nothing  happened. 

"Aye,  aye,  sir,"  said  the  mate,  and  shouted  the  order 
to  the  men  ashore.  The  captain  regarded  him  balefully, 
muttered  a  few  words,  and  returned  to  the  club  for  a  Dr. 
Funk.  That  medical  man  ranked  here  above  Colonel 
Rickey,  who  invented  the  gin-rickey  in  America. 

Herr  Funk  was  better  known  in  the  Cercle  Bougain- 
ville than  Charcot  or  Lister  or  Darwin.  The  doctor 
part  of  the  drink's  name  made  it  seem  almost  like  a  pre- 
scription, and  often,  when  amateurs  sought  to  evade  a 
second  or  third,  the  old-timers  laughed  at  their  fears  of 
ill  results,  and  said: 

"That  old  Doctor  Funk  knew  what  he  was  about. 
Why,  he  kept  people  alive  on  that  mixture.  It 's  like 
mother's  milk." 


CHAPTER  VII 

The  INToo-IVoa  comes  to  port — Papeete  en  fete — Rare  scene  at  the  Tiare 
Hotel — The  New  Year  celebrated — Excitement  at  the  wharf — Battle 
of  the  Limes  and  Coal. 

THE  Noa-Noa  came  in  after  many  days  of  sus- 
pense, during  which  rumors  and  reports  of  war 
grew  into  circumstantial  statements  of  engage- 
ments at  sea  and  battles  on  land.  A  mysterious  vessel 
was  said  to  have  slipped  in  at  night  with  despatches  for 
the  governor.  All  was  sensation  and  canard,  on  dit 
and  oui  dire,  and  all  was  proved  false  when  the  liner 
came  through  the  passage  in  the  reef.  Nothing  had 
happened  to  disturb  the  peace  of  nations,  but  a  dock 
strike  in  Auckland  had  tied  up  the  ship.  The  relief  of 
mind  of  the  people  of  Papeete  caused  a  wave  of  joy  to 
pass  over  them.  Business  men  and  officials,  tourists 
who  expected  to  leave  for  America  and  the  outside  world 
on  the  Noa-Noa,  overflowed  with  evidence  of  their  de- 
light. The  consuls  of  the  powers  met  at  the  Cercle 
Militaire  the  governor,  and  laughed  hectically  at  the  ab- 
surd balloon  of  tittle-tattle  which  had  been  pricked  by 
the  Noa-NoaJs  facts.  There  had  been  absolutely  noth- 
ing to  the  rumors  but  the  fears  or  the  antipathies  of  na- 
tionals in  Tahiti. 

It  was  the  holiday  season,  the  New  Year  at  hand,  and, 
moreover,  there  was  added  cause  for  rejoicing  in  the 
safety  of  the  Saint  Michel,  a  French-owned  inter-island 

108 


MYSTIC  ISLES  109 

steamship  which  had  been  missing  six  weeks.  She  had 
left  one  of  the  Paumotu  atolls  and  failed  to  reach  her 
next  port,  thirty  miles  away.  Rumor  had  sent  her  to 
the  bottom.  She  was  a  crank  vessel,  with  a  perpetual 
list,  and  a  roll  of  twenty-five  degrees  in  the  quietest  sea ; 
the  dread  of  all  compelled  by  affairs  to  take  passage  on 
her. 

"She's  sunk;  rolled  over  too  much,  and  turned  tur- 
tle," was  the  verdict  at  the  Cercle  Bougainville.  Her 
agents  had  sent  the  Cholita,  a  small  power  schooner,  to 
go  over"  the  Saint  Michel's  course,  and  find  trace  of  her, 
if  possible.  Imagine  the  excitement  along  the  water- 
front when,  almost  coincident  with  the  sighting  of  the 
Noa-Noa,  the  Saint  Michel  appeared,  pulled  by  the 
Cholita.  Familiar  faces  of  passengers  appeared  on  her 
deck  as  she  made  fast  to  the  quay,  holding  cigarettes  as 
if  they  had  waked  up  after  a  night  in  their  own  beds. 
The  Cholita  had  found  the  Saint  Michel  at  the  Mar- 
quesas Islands,  whither  she  had  drifted  after  losing  her 
rudder  on  a  rock.  After  a  month  lying  inert  at  the 
Marquesas,  the  Cholita  had  taken  hold  and  dragged  the 
crippled  Saint  back  to  Papeete. 

The  joy  and  surprise  of  the  families  and  friends  of  the 
passengers  and  the  crew  must  have  the  vent  usual  here, 
and  what  with  the  Noa-Noas  crew  of  amateur  sailors, 
firemen,  and  yachtsman,  and  six  licensed  captains,  tak- 
ing the  places  of  the  strikers,  the  town  was  filled  with 
pleasure-seekers.  A  high  mass  of  thanksgiving  at  the 
cathedral  was  followed  by  a  day  of  explanations,  anathe- 
mas upon  the  owners  of  the  Saint  Michel,  and  the  strik- 
ing labor-unions,  and  of  music,  dancing,  and  toasts. 

New  Year's  eve,  two  picture  shows,  hulas,  and  the  f es- 


110  MYSTIC  ISLES 

tivities  of  the  wedding  of  Cowan,  the  prize-fighter, 
brought  in  a  throng  from  the  districts  to  add  to  the 
Papeete  population  and  the  voyagers. 

The  streets  were  a  blaze  of  colored  gowns  and  flower- 
crowned  girls  and  women.  The  quays  were  lined  with 
singing  and  playing  country  folk.  Small  boats  and 
canoes  were  arriving  every  few  minutes  during  the  aft- 
ernoon with  natives  who  preferred  the  water  route  to  the 
Broom  Road.  Cowan  was  a  favorite  boxer,  and  shortly 
to  face  the  noted  Christchurch  Kid,  of  Christchurch, 
New  Zealand,  whose  fist  was  described  on  the  bill-boards 
as  "a  rock  thrown  by  a  mighty  slinger."  Cowan,  a 
half-Polynesian,  was  beloved  for  his  island  blood,  and 
was  marrying  into  a  Tahitian  family  of  note  and 
means.  The  nuptials  at  the  church  were  preceded  by  a 
triumphal  procession  of  the  bride  and  groom  in  an  auto- 
mobile, with  a  score  of  other  cars  following,  the  entire 
party  gorgeously  adorned  with  wreaths, — hei  in  Tahi- 
tian,— and  the  vehicles  lavishly  decorated  with  sugar- 
cane and  bamboo  tassels.  The  band  of  the  cinema  led 
the  entourage,  and  played  a  free  choice  of  appropriate 
music,  "Lohengrin"  before  the  governor's  palace,  and 
"There  '11  be  a  Hot  Time  in  the  Old  Town  To-night" 
as  they  passed  Lovaina's.  The  company  sang  lustily, 
and  toasts  to  the  embracing  couple  were  drunk  gener- 
ously from  spouting  champagne-bottles  as  the  cortege 
circled  the  principal  streets. 

There  was  rare  life  at  Lovaina's,  for  besides  all  the 
diners  in  ordinary  and  extraordinary  in  the  salle-a-man- 
ger,  Stevens,  the  London  stockbroker,  had  a  retired 
table  set  for  the  American,  British,  and  German  consuls 
and  their  wives.  The  highest  two  officials  of  France  in 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  ill 

this  group,  Messieurs,  1'Inspecteurs  des  Colonies,  were 
there,  eating  solemnly  alone,  as  demanded  by  their  ex- 
alted rank,  and  their  mission  of  criticism.  They  glanced 
down  often  at  their  broad  bosoms  to  see  that  their  many 
orders  were  on  straight,  to^note  the  admiration  of  lesser 
officialdom,  and  to  make  eyes  at  the  women.  Their  long 
and  profuse  black  beards  were  hidden  by  their  napkins, 
which  all  Frenchmen  of  parts  hereabouts  tuck  in  their 
collars,  and  draw  up  to  their  mouths,  a  precaution  which, 
when  omitted,  is  seen  to  have  been  founded  on  an  eti- 
quette utilitarian  and  esthetic. 

The  company  was  complex.  At  a  table  opposite  me 
sat  the  juge  inferieur  and  the  daughter  of  the  Chinese 
cook  at  the  Hotel  Central,  a  smart,  slender  woman  with 
burning  eyes,  and  with  them,  in  full  uniform,  were  two 
French  civil  officials,  who  wore,  as  customary,  clothes 
like  soldiers.  One  unfamiliar  with  their  regalia  might 
mistake,  as  I  did,  a  pharmacist  for  an  admiral.  Mary, 
the  cook's  half-Tahitian  daughter,  was  in  elaborate  Eu- 
ropean dress,  with  a  gilded  barret  of  baroque  pearls  in 
her  copious,  ebon  tresses,  and  with  red  kid  shoes  buckled 
in  silver  and  blister  pearls. 

The  son  of  Prince  Hinoe,  who  would  have  been  the 
King  of  Tahiti  had  the  dynasty  continued  to  reign,  had  a 
dozen  chums  at  a  table,  oafs  from  seventeen  to  twenty, 
and  with  the  fish  course  they  began  to  chant.  The  cap- 
tain of  the  Saint  Michel  was  with  Woronick,  the  pearl- 
buyer,  who  had  made  the  fearful  trip  to  the  Marquesas 
with  him.  There  was  Heezonorweelee,  as  the  natives 
call  the  Honorable  Walter  Williams,  the  most  famous 
dentist  within  five  thousand  miles,  and  the  most  dis- 
tinguished white  man  of  Tahiti;  Landers;  Polonsky; 


112  MYSTIC  ISLES 

David;  McHenry;  Schlyter,  the  Swedish  tailor;  Jones 
and  Mrs.  Jones,  the  husband,  head  of  a  book  company 
in  Los  Angeles;  a  Barbary  Coast  singer  and  her  man;  a 
demirep  of  Chicago  and  her  loved  one;  three  Tahitian 
youths  with  wreaths;  the  post-office  manager,  and  with 
him  the  surgeon  of  the  hospital ;  a  notary's  clerk,  the  gov- 
ernor's private  secretary;  the  administrateur  of  the  Mar- 
quesas Islands,  Margaret,  Lurline  and  Mathilde,  Lena, 
and  Lucy,  lovely  part-Tahitian  girls  who  clerked  in 
stores;  the  Otoman,  chauffeur  for  Polonsky;  English 
tourists ;  Nance,  the  California  capitalist ;  and  others. 

Curses  upon  Saint  Michel,,  threats  of  damage  suits  for 
fright  and  delay,  laughable  stories  of  the  mistakes  of 
the  volunteer  crew  of  the  Noa-Noa;  discussions  of  the 
price  of  copra,  mingled  with  the  chants  of  the  native 
feasters  and  ribald  tales.  The  Tiare  girls,  all  color  and 
sparkle,  exchanged  quips  with  the  male  diners,  patted 
their  shoulders,  and  gigglingly  fought  when  they  tried 
to  take  them  into  their  laps. 

In  the  open  porch,  Lovaina,  gaily  adorned,  her  feet 
bare,  but  a  wreath  of  ferns  on  her  head,  sped  the  dishes 
and  the  wine.  She  kept  the  desserts  before  her  and  cut 
portions  to  suit  the  quality  of  her  liking  for  each  patron. 

"Taporo  e  taata  au  ahu"  said  Atupu. 

"The  lime  and  the  tailor,"  that  means,  and  identified 
Landers  and  Schlyter.  Landers  was  the  "lime"  be- 
cause a  former  partner  of  his  establishment  exported 
limes,  and  Landers  succeeded  to  his  nickname.  Lan- 
ders and  Schlyter  were  good  customers,  so  they  got 
larger  slices  of  dried-apple  pie. 

Chappe-Hall,  being  bidden  farewell  on  his  leaving 
for  Auckland,  was  apostrophizing  Tahiti  in  verse,  all  the 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  113 

stanzas  ending  in  "And  the  glory  of  her  eyes  over  all." 
There  were  bumpers  and  more,  and  "Bottoms  up,"  until 
a  slat-like  American  woman  bounced  off  the  veranda 
with  her  sixth  course  uneaten  to  complain  to  Lovaina 
that  her  hotel  was  no  place  for  a  Christian  or  a  lady. 
Lovaina  almost  wept  with  astonishment  and  grief,  but 
kept  the  champagne  moving  toward  the  Chappe-Hall 
table  as  fast  as  it  could  be  cooled,  meanwhile  assuring 
the  scandalized  guest  that  nothing  undecorous  ever  hap- 
pened in  the  Tiare  Hotel,  but  that  it  were  better  it  did 
than  that  young  men  should  go  to  evil  resorts  for  their 
outbursts. 

"My  place  respectable,"  Lovaina  said  dignified!}'. 
"I  don'  'low  no  monkey  bizeness.  Drinkin'  wine  cus- 
tom of  Tahiti.  Make  little  fun,  no  harm.  If  they  go 
that  Cocoanut  House,  get  in  bad." 

Lovaina  told  me  all  about  it.  She  was  quite  hurt  at 
the  aspersions  upon  her  home,  and  entered  the  dining- 
room  in  a  breathing  spell  to  sit  at  my  table,  a  rather  un- 
usual honor  I  deeply  felt.  I  pledged  my  love  for  her 
in  Pol  Roger,  but  she  would  have  nothing  but  water. 

"I  no  drink  these  times,"  she  explained.  "Maybe 
some  day  I  do  again.  Make  fat  people  too  much  big- 
ger. That  flat  woman  from  'Xited  States,  ain't  she 
funny?  I  think  missionary." 

From  the  screened  area  in  which  the  consuls  dined 
with  the  broker  one  heard : 

"Here  's  to  the  king,  God  bless  him!"  "Hocli  der 
Kaiser!"  "Vive  la  Republique!"  "The  Stars  and 
Stripes!"  as  the  glasses  were  emptied  by  the  consuls  and 
their  wives  and  host. 

Lovaina  had  taken  up  the  rug  in  the  parlor,  and  a 


114  MYSTIC  ISLES 

graphophone  ground  out  the  music  for  dancing.  Rag- 
time records  brought  out  the  Otoman,  a  San  Franciscan, 
bald  and  coatless.  He  took  the  floor  with  Mathilde,  a 
chic,  petite,  and  graceful  half-caste,  and  they  danced  the 
maxixe.  David  glided  with  Margaret,  Landers  led  out 
Lucy,  and  soon  the  room  was  filled  with  whirling  couples. 
A  score  looked  on  and  sipped  champagne,  the  serving 
girls  trying  to  fill  the  orders  and  lose  no  moment  from 
flirtation.  On  the  camphor-wood  chest  four  were  seated 
in  two's  space. 

When  midnight  tolled  from  the  cathedral  tower,  there 
was  an  uncalled-for  speech  from  a  venerable  traveler 
who  apparently  was  not  sure  of  the  date  or  the  exact 
nature  of  the  fete: 

"Fellow-exiles  and  natives  bujus  Teetee.  We  are 
gathered  together  this  Fourth  of  July — " 

Cries  of  "Aita!"  "Ce  riest-pas  vrai!"  "Shove  in 
your  high!  It 's  New  Year!" 

" — to  cel'brate  the  annivers'ry  of  the  death  of  that 
great  man — " 

Yells  of  "Sit  down!"  "Olalala!"  "Aita  maitair  and 
the  venerable  orator  took  his  seat.  He  was  once  a  gov- 
ernor of  a  territory  under  President  Harrison,  and  now 
lived  off  his  pension,  shaky,  sans  teeth,  sans  hair,  but 
never  sans  speech. 

The  Englishmen  and  Americans  clattered  glasses  and 
said  "Happy  New  Year!"  and  the  Tahitians:  "Rupe- 
rupe  tatou  iti!  I  teienei  mataliiti  api!"  "Hurrah  for 
all  of  us!  Good  cheer  for  the  New  Year!" 

Monsieur  Lontane,  second  in  command  of  the  police, 
arrived  just  in  time  to  drink  the  bonne  annee.  He  exe- 
cuted a  pas  seul.  He  mimicked  a  great  one  of  France. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  115 

He  drank  champagne  from  a  bottle,  a  clear  four  inches 
between  its  neck  and  his,  and  not  a  drop  spilled. 

Lovaina  sat  on  her  bench  in  the  porch  and  marked 
down  the  debits : 


Fat    face 3  Roederer 

New    Doctor 5  champag. 

Hair  on  nose 2   champ.  .  . 

Willi    4.  pol 


The  electric  lights  went  out.  There  was  a  dreadful 
flutter  among  the  girls.  Some  one  went  to  the  piano 
and  began  to  play,  "Should  Auld  Acquaintance  be  For- 
got," and  the  Americans  and  English  sang,  the  French 
humming  the  air.  The  wine  flattened  in  the  glasses  and 
open  bottles,  but  no  one  cared.  They  gathered  in  the 
garden,  where  the  perfume  of  the  tiare  scented  the 
night,  and  the  stars  were  a  million  lamps  sublime  in 
the  sky.  Song  followed  song,  English  and  French,  and 
when  the  lazy  current  pulsated  again,  the  ball  was  over. 

We  walked  to  the  beach,  Nance  and  I. 

"It 's  hell  how7  this  place  gets  hold  of  you,"  said  Xance, 
who  had  shot  pythons  in  Paraguay  and  had  a  yacht  in 
Los  Angeles  harbor.  "I  dunno,  it  must  be  the  cocoa- 
nuts  or  the  breadfruit." 

Walking  back  alone  through  a  by-path,  I  saw  the 
old  folks  sitting  on  their  verandas  and  the  younger  at 
dalliance  in  the  many  groves.  Voices  of  girls  called 
me: 

"H acre  me  ne !"  "Come  to  us!"  "H oere  mat  u  net 
ite  po  ia  u  nei!" 

The  Himene  tatou  Arearea  of  our  Moorea  expedi- 
tion came  from  many  windows,  the  accordions  sweet  and 


116  MYSTIC  ISLES 

low,  and  the  subdued  chant  in  sympathy  with  the  mel- 
low hour.  "The  soft  lasceevious  stars  leered  from  these 
velvet  skies." 

Lovaina  had  gone  to  bed,  but,  with  the  lights  on  again, 
patrons  of  the  prize-fight  had  dropped  in.  The  Christ- 
church  Kid  had  beaten  Teaea,  a  native,  the  match  being 
a  preliminary  clearing  of  the  ground  before  the  signal 
encounter  with  the  bridegroom. 

The  glass  doors  of  the  salle-a-manger  were  broken  in  a 
playful  scuffle  between  the  whiskered  doctor  of  the  hos- 
pital, and  Afa,  the  majordomo  of  the  Tiare.  The  medi- 
cal man  ordered  five  bottles  of  champagne,  and,  putting 
them  in  his  immense  pockets,  returned  to  his  table  and 
opened  them  all  at  once.  He  had  them  spouting  about 
him  while  their  fizz  lasted,  and  then  drank  most  of  their 
contents.  He  then  threw  all  the  crockery  of  his  table 
to  the  roadway,  and  Afa  wrestled  him  into  a  better  state, 
during  which  process  the  doors  were  smashed.  When 
the  bombilation  became  too  fearful,  Lovaina  called  out 
from  her  bed: 

"Make  smaller  noise!     Nobody  is  asleep  1" 

At  two  in  the  morning  the  gendarmes  advised  the  last 
revelers  to  retire,  and  the  Tiare  became  quiet.  But 
Atupu  slept  in  a  little  alcove  by  the  bar,  and  any  one 
in  her  favor  had  but  to  enter, her  chamber  and  pull  her 
shapely  leg  to  be  served  in  case  of  dire  need. 

The  incidents  of  the  departure  of  the  Noa-Noa  that 
day  for  San  Francisco  will  live  in  the  annals  of  Papeete. 
Its  calamitous  happenings  are  "in  the  archives."  I  have 
the  word  of  the  secretary-general  of  the  Etablissments 
Fran9ais  de  1'Oceanie  for  that,  and  in  the  saloons  and 
coffee-houses  they  talked  loudly  of  the  "bataille  entre 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  117 

les  cochons  Anglais  et  les  heros  les  Franpais  et  les 
Tahitiens." 

It  was  a  battle  that  would  have  rejoiced  the  heart  of 
Don  QuLrote,  and  that  redoubtable  knight  had  his  proto- 
type here  in  the  van  of  it,  the  second  in  command  of  the 
police  of  Papeete,  M.  Lontane,  the  mimic  of  the  Tiare 
celebration. 

The  Noa-Noa's  amateur  crew  of  wretched  beach- 
combers, farm  laborers,  and  impossible  firemen,  stokers, 
and  stewards,  a  pitiable  set,  were  about  the  waterfront 
all  day,  dirty,  dressed  in  hot  woolen  clothes,  bedraggled 
and  as  drunk  as  their  money  would  allow.     The  ship  was 
down  to  leave  at  three-thirty  o'clock,  but  it  was  four 
when  the  last  bag  of  copra  was  aboard.     There  were 
few  passengers,  and  those  who  booked  here  were  dis- 
mayed at  the  condition  of  the  passageways,  the  cabins, 
and  the  decks.     The  crowd  of  "scabs,"  untrained  white 
sailors,  and  coal  passers  was  supplemented  by  Raratonga 
natives,  lounging  about  the  gangway  and  sitting  on  the 
rails.     On  the  wharf  hundreds  of  people  had  gathered 
as  usual  to  see  the  liner  off.     Lovaina  wras  there  in  a 
pink  lace  dress,  seated  in  her  carriage,  with  Vava  at  the 
horse's  head.     Prince  Hinoe  had  gathered  about  him  a 
group  of  pretty  girls,  to  whom  he  was  promising  a  feast 
in  the  country.     All  the  tourists,  the  loafers,  the  mer- 
chants, and  the  schooner  crews  were  there,  too,  and  the 
iron-roofed  shed  in  which  it  is  forbidden  to  smoke  was 
filled  with  them.     The  Xoa-Noa  blew  and  blew  her 
whistle,  but  still  she  did  not  go.     The  lines  to  the  wharf 
were  loosened,  the  captain  was  on  the  bridge,  the  last 
farewells  were  being  called  and  waved,  but  there  was 
delay.     Word  was  spread  that  some  of  the  crew  were 


118  MYSTIC  ISLES 

missing,  and  as  at  the  best  the  vessel  was  short-handed, 
it  had  to  tarry. 

At  last  came  three  of  the  missing  men.  They,  too, 
had  welcomed  the  Xew  Year,  and  their  gait  was  as  at 
sea  when  the  ship  rises  and  falls  on  the  huge  waves. 
They  wheeled  in  a  barrow  a  mate  whose  mispoise  made 
self-locomotion  impossible.  The  trio  danced  on  the 
wharf,  sang  a  chantey  about  "whisky  being  the  life  of 
man,"  and  declared  they  would  stay  all  their  lives  in 
Tahiti;  that  the  "bloody  hooker  could  bleedin'  well"  go 
without  them.  They  were  ordered  on  board  by  M. 
Lontane,  with  two  strapping  Tahitian  gendarmes  at  his 
back. 

If  there  are  any  foreigners  the  average  British  rousta- 
bout hates  it  is  French  gendarmes,  and  the  ruffians  were 
of  a  mind  to  "beat  them  up."  They  raised  their  fists  in 
attitudes  of  combat,  and  suddenly  what  had  been  a  joy- 
ous row  became  a  troublesome  incident. 

Sacre  bleu!  those  scoundrels  of  English  to  menace  the 
uniformed  patriots  of  the  French  republic !  The  second 
in  command  drew  a  revolver,  and  pointing  at  the  hairy 
breast  of  the  leader  of  the  Noa-Noans,  shouted:  "Au  le 
vapeur!  Diable!  What,  you  whisky-filled  pigs,  you 
will  resist  the  law?" 

He  took  off  his  helmet  and  handed  it  to  one  of  the 
native  policemen  while  he  unlimbered  the  revolver  more 
firmly  in  the  direction  of  the  seamen.  The  sailor  shrank 
back  in  bewilderment.  Guns  were  unknown  in  shore 
squabbles. 

"I'll  'ave  the  British  Gov'ment  after  ye,"  roared 
the  leader.  "I  '11  write  to  the  Sydney  papers.  Ye  Ve 
pulled  a  gun  in  me  face." 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  119 

Steadily  and  with  some  good  nature  the  Tahitian  of- 
ficers pushed  the  trio  toward  the  gangway  and  up  it. 
Once  aboard,  the  gangway  was  hoisted,  the  pilot  clam- 
bered up  the  side,  and  it  seemed  as  if  the  liner  was  away. 
But  no;  the  three  recalcitrants  jumped  on  the  bulwarks, 
and  joined  by  a  dozen  others,  yelled  defiance  at  the  au- 
thorities. As  the  Noa-Noa  gradually  drew  out  these 
cries  became  more  definite,  and  the  honor  of  France  and 
of  all  Frenchmen  was  assailed  in  the  most  ancient  Eng- 
lish Billingsgate.  Gestures  of  frightful  significance 
added  to  the  insults,  and  these  not  producing  retorts  in 
kind  from  the  second  in  command  and  the  populace,  a 
shower  of  limes  began  to  fall  upon  them. 

Sacks  of  potatoes,  lettuce-heads,  yams,  and  even  pine- 
apples, deck  cargo,  were  broken  open  by  the  infuriated 
crew  to  hurl  at  the  police.  The  crowd  on  the  wharf 
rushed  for  shelter  behind  posts  and  carriages,  the  horses 
pranced  and  snorted,  and  M.  Lontane  leaped  to  the  fore. 
He  advanced  to  the  edge  of  the  quay,  and  in  desperate 
French,  of  which  his  adversaries  understood  not  a  word, 
threatened  to  have  them  dragged  from  their  perches  and 
sent  to  New  Caledonia. 

A  well-aimed  lime  squashed  on  his  cheek,  and  with  a 
"Sapristi!"  he  fled  behind  a  stack  of  boxes.  The  riot 
became  general,  the  roustabouts  heaving  iron  bars,  pieces 
of  wood,  and  anything  they  could  find.  No  officer  of  the 
Noa-Noa  said  a  word  to  stop  them,  evidently  fearing  a 
general  strike  of  the  crew,  and  when  the  missiles  cut 
open  the  head  of  a  native  stevedore  and  fell  even  among 
the  laughing  girls,  the  courtesies  began  to  be  returned. 
Coal,  iron  nuts,  stones,  and  other  serious  projectiles  were 
thrown  with  a  hearty  good-will,  and  soon  the  crew 


120  MYSTIC  ISLES 

and  the  passengers  of  the  Xoa-Xoa  were  scuttling  for 
safety. 

The  storm  of  French  and  Tahitian  adjectives  was  now 
a  cyclone,  Tahitian  girls,  their  gowns  stained  by  the 
fruity  and  leguminous  shot  of  the  Australasians,  seized 
lumps  of  coal  or  coral,  and  took  the  van  of  the  shore 
legions.  Atupu  struck  the  leader  of  the  Xoa-Noa 
snipers  in  the  nose  with  a  rock,  and  her  success  brought 
a  pasan  of  praise  from  all  of  us. 

The  entente  cordiale  with  Britain  was  sundered  in  a 
minute.  The  melee  grew  into  a  fierce  battle,  and  only 
the  increasing  distance  of  the  vessel  from  shore  stopped 
the  firing,  the  last  shots  falling  into  the  lagoon. 

The  second  in  command  had  been  reinforced  by  the 
first  in  command,  and  now,  summoned  by  courier,  ap- 
peared the  secretary-general  of  the  Etablissements 
Fran9aises  de  1'Oceanie,  bearded  and  helmeted,  white- 
faced  and  nervous,  throwing  his  arms  into  the  air  and 
shrieking,  "Qu*  est-que  ce  que  fa?  Is  this  war?  Are 
we  human,  or  are  these  savages?" 

Lovaina,  in  the  rear  of  whose  carriage  I  had  taken 
refuge,  exclaimed: 

"They  say  Tahiti  people  is  savage!  Why  this  crazy 
people  must  be  finished.  Is  this  business  go  on?" 

frNonf  non!"  replied  the  secretary-general,  with 
patriotic  anger,  "We  French  are  long  suffering,  but 
cest  assez  maintenant." 

He  spoke  to  the  first  in  command,  and  an  order  was 
shouted  to  M.  Wilms,  the  pilot,  to  leave  the  Noa-Xoa. 
That  official  descended  into  his  boat  and  returned  to  the 
quay,  while  the  liner  hovered  a  hundred  yards  away,  the 
captain  afraid  to  come  nearer,  fearful  of  leaving  port 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  121 

without  expert  guidance,  and  more  so  that  the  crew 
might  renew  the  comhat. 

The  secretary-general  conferred  with  the  private  sec- 
retary of  the  governor,  the  first  and  second  in  command, 
and  several  old  residents.  They  wrould  apply  to  the 
British  consul  for  warrants  for  the  arrest  of  the  ruf- 
fianly marksmen,  they  would  wrench  them  from  the  rails, 
and  sentence  them  to  long  imprisonments. 

So  for  an  hour  more  the  steamship  puffed  and  ex- 
hausted her  steam,  while  the  high  officials  paced  the 
wharf  shaking  their  fists  at  the  besotted  stokers,  who 
shook  theirs  back. 

The  stores,  closing  at  five  o'clock,  sent  their  quota  of 
clerks  to  swell  the  mob  at  the  quay,  and  the  "rubberneck 
wagon,"  alert  to  earn  fares,  took  the  news  of  the  fray 
into  the  country,  and  hauled  in  scores  of  excited  provin- 
cials, who  had  vague  ideas  that  la  guerre  was  on.  The 
wedding  party,  only  six  motor-cars  full  on  the  second 
day,  all  in  wreaths  of  tuberoses  and  wild-cherry  rind, 
the  bride  still  in  her  point-lace  veil,  and  the  groom  and 
all  the  guests  cheered  with  the  champagne  they  had 
drunk,  drove  under  the  shed  from  the  suburbs  and 
honked  their  horns,  to  the  horror  of  the  secretary-general 
and  the  others. 

The  situation  was  now  both  disciplinary  and  diplo- 
matic. 

"C'est  tres  serieux"  whispered  the  secretary  to  the 
governor's  private  secretary,  a  dapper  little  man  whose 
flirting  had  made  his  wife  a  Xiobe  and  alarmed  the  hus- 
bands and  fathers  of  many  French  dames  et  files. 

"Serious,  monsieur?"  said  the  private  secretary,  twist- 
ing his  black  wisp  of  a  mustache,  "it  is  more  than  serious 


122  MYSTIC  ISLES 

now;  it  is  no  longer  the  French  Establishments  of 
Oceania.  It  is  between  Great  Britain  and  France." 

A  peremptory  order  was  given  to  drive  every  one  off 
the  quay,  and  though  the  crowd  chaffed  the  police,  the 
sweep  of  wharf  was  left  free  for  the  marchings  and 
counter-marchings  of  the  big  men. 

"What  would  be  the  result?  Would  the  entire 
British  population  of  the  ship  resist  the  taking  away  of 
any  of  the  crew?  Oh,  if  the  paltry  French  administra- 
tion at  Paris  had  not  removed  the  companies  of  soldiers 
who  until  recently  had  been  the  pride  of  Papeete !  And 
crown  of  misfortune,  the  gun-boat,  sole  guardian  of 
French  honor  in  these  seas,  was  in  Australia  for  repairs. 
Eh  bien,  n'importe!  Every  Frenchman  was  a  soldier. 
Did  not  Napoleon  say  that  ?  Norn  de  pipe!" 

Wilfrid  Baillon,  a  cow-boy  from  British  Columbia, 
was  standing  near  me  with  his  arms  folded  on  his  breast 
and  a  look  of  stern  determination  on  his  sunburned 
face. 

"We  must  look  sharp,"  he  said  to  me.  "We  may 
all  have  to  stand  together,  we  whites,  against  these 
French  frog-eaters." 

The  tension  was  extreme.  The  warrants  had  not 
come  from  the  British  consul,  and  there  seemed  no  dis- 
position on  the  Noa-Noa  to  save  the  face  of  la  belle  re- 
publique,  for  the  blackened  and  blackguardly  stokers 
still  dangled  their  legs  over  the  rail  and  made  motions 
which  caused  the  officials  to  shudder  and  the  ladies  to 
shut  their  eyes. 

The  agent  of  the  vessel  in  Papeete,  an  American,  ap- 
peared. He  talked  long  and  earnestly  with  the  secre- 
tary-general and  the  first  and  second,  and  to  lend  even 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  123 

a  darker  color  to  the  scene,  the  procureur-general,  the 
Martinique  black,  tall,  protuberant,  mopping  his  bald 
head,  took  the  center  of  the  conclave.  Noses  were  low- 
ered and  brought  together,  feet  were  stamped,  hands 
were  wiggled  behind  backs,  and  right  along  the  Ameri- 
can, the  agent,  talked  and  talked. 

They  demurred,  they  spat  on  the  boards,  they  lifted 
their  hands  aloft — and  then  they  ordered  the  pilot  to 
return  to  the  Noa-Noa,  and  that  vessel,  whistling  long 
and  relievedly,  pointed  her  nose  toward  the  opening  in 
the  reef. 

Mon  Dieu!  the  suspense  was  over.  The  people 
melted  toward  their  homes  and  the  restaurants,  for  it 
was  nearly  seven  o'clock.  I  drifted  into  the  knot  about 
the  officials. 

"It  is  in  the  archives,"  said  the  secretary-general.  "It 
will  go  down  in  history.  That  is  enough." 

The  delightful  M.  Lontane,  in  khaki  riding  breeches, 
— he,  as  all  police,  ride  bicycles — his  khaki  helmet  tipped 
rakishly  over  his  cigarette,  blew  a  ringlet. 

"C'est  comme  fa.  We  would  not  press  our  victory," 
he  said  gallantly.  "We  French  are  generous.  We 
have  hearts." 

The  secretary-general,  the  procureur  general,  the  first 
in  command  and  the  private  secretary,  sighted  the  car- 
riage of  the  governor,  who  had  not  appeared  until  the 
Noa-Noa  was  out  of  the  lagoon,  and  they  went  to  tell 
him  of  the  great  affair. 

The  agent  of  the  line,  grim  and  unsmiling,  climbed  to 
the  wide  veranda  of  the  Cercle  Bougainville,  and  or- 
dered a  Scotch  and  siphon. 

"There  she  goes,"  he  said  to  me,  and  pointed  to  the 


124  MYSTIC  ISLES 

steamer  streaking  through  the  reef  gate.     "There  she 
goes,  and  I  'm  bloody  well  satisfied." 

At  tea  the  next  afternoon  the  British  consul  cast  a  new 
light  on  the  international  incident.  He  was  playing 
bridge  with  the  governor  and  others  when  the  demand 
for  the  warrants  was  brought. 

"The  blighters  interrupted  our  rubber,"  said  the  con- 
sul, "and  the  governor  was  exceedingly  put  out.  I 
told  them  the  Xoa-Noa  could  n't  proceed  without  the 
stokers,  and  as  it  carries  the  French  mail,  they  patched 
it  up  to  arrest  them  when  they  return.  We  quite  lost 
track  of  the  game  for  a  few  minutes." 

But  the  cruel  war  would  not  down.  There  was  not  a 
good  feeling  between  the  English  and  French  in  Tahiti. 
A  slight  opposition  cropped  out  often  in  criticism  ex- 
pressed to  Americans  or  to  Tahitians,  or  to  each  other's 
own  people.  Xew  Zealand  governs  the  Cook  group,  of 
which  Raratonga  is  the  principal  island.  Comparisons 
of  sanitation,  order,  neatness,  and  businesslike  manage- 
ment of  these  islands,  with  the  happy-go-lucky  adminis- 
tration of  the  Society,  Paumotus,  Marquesas,  and 
Austral  archipelagoes,  owned  by  the  French,  were  fre- 
quent by  the  English.  The  French  shrugged  their 
shoulders. 

"Th°  Tahitians  are  happy,  and  we  send  millions  of 
francs  to  aid  France,"  they  said.  "The  English  talk 
always  of  neatness  and  golf  links  and  cricket-grounds. 
Eh  bien!  There  are  other  and  better  things.  And  as 
for  drink,  oht  la,  la!  Our  sour  wines  could  not  fight 
one  round  of  the  English  boxe  with  whisky  and  gin  and 
that  awful  ale." 

The  French  residents  protested  at  the  missiles  of  the 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  125 

crew  and  the  laissez-faire  of  the  Noa-Noa  officers,  and 
the  British  consul  received  a  letter  from  the  governor  in 
which  the  affair  of  the  riot  was  revived  in  an  absurd 
manner. 

One  might  understand  M.  Lontane,  second  in  com- 
mand of  the  police  forces, — six  men  and  himself, — mag- 
nifying the  row  between  the  tipsy  stokers  and  his  bat- 
talions, but  to  have  the  governor,  who  was  a  first-rate 
hand  at  bridge,  and  even  knew  the  difference  between  a 
straight  and  a  flush,  putting  down  in  black  and  white, 
sealed  with  the  seal  of  the  Eepublique  Francaise,  and 
signed  with  his  own  hand,  that  "France  had  been  in- 
sulted by  the  actions  of  the  savages  of  the  Noa-Noa" 
was  worthy  only  of  the  knight  of  La  Mancha. 

So  thought  the  consul,  but  he  was  a  diplomat,  his 
adroitness  gained  not  only  in  the  consular  ranks,  but  also 
in  Persia  as  a  secretary  of  legation,  and  in  many  a  fever- 
stricken  and  robber-ridden  port  of  the  Xear  and  Far 
East.  He  pinned  upon  his  most  obstreperous  uniform 
the  medal  won  by  merit,  straddled  a  dangling  sword, 
helmeted  his  head,  and  with  an  interpreter,  that  the  in- 
terview might  lack  nothing  of  formality,  called  upon  the 
governor  at  his  palace. 

He  told  him  that  the  letter  of  complaint  had  roused 
his  wonderment,  for,  said  his  British  Majesty's  represen- 
tative, "There  can  be  no  serious  result,  diplomatically  or 
locally,  of  this  Donnybrook  Fair  incident.  In  a  hun- 
dred ports  of  the  world  wrhere  war-ships  and  merchant 
ships  go,  their  crews  for  scores  of  years  have  fought 
with  the  police.  Besides,  I  am  informed  that  Monsieur 
Lontane  put  a  revolver  against  the  stomach  of  one  of  the 
stokers,  and  that  provoked  the  nastiness.  LTntil  then  it 


126  MYSTIC  ISLES 

had  been  uncouth  mirth  causd  by  the  vile  liquor  sold  by 
the  saloons  licensed  by  the  Government,  and  against  the 
Papeete  regulations  that  no  more  intoxicants  shall  be 
sold  to  a  man  already  drunk.  But  when  this  British 
citizen,  scum  of  Sydney  or  Glasgow  as  he  might  be, 
saw  the  deadly  weapon,  he  felt  aggrieved.  This  revol- 
ver practice  is  all  too  common  on  the  part  of  Monsieur 
Lontane.  Six  such  complaints  I  have  had  in  as  many 
months.  As  to  that  part  of  your  letter  that  the  crew  of 
the  Noa-Noa  not  be  allowed  to  land  here  on  its  return 
to  Papeete,  I  agree  with  you,  but  it  will  be  for  you  to 
enforce  this  prohibition." 

It  was  agreed  that  on  the  day  the  Noa-Noa  arrived 
on  her  return  trip,  all  gendarmes  and  available  guard  be 
summoned  from  the  country  to  preserve  order,  and  that, 
as  asked  in  the  letter,  the  consul  demand  that  the  cap- 
tain of  the  steamship  punish  the  rioters. 

And  all  this  being  done  through  an  interpreter,  and 
the  consul  having  unlimbered  his  falchion  and  removed 
his  helmet,  he  and  the  governor  had  an  absinthe  frappe 
and  made  a  date  for  a  bridge  game. 

"Te  tamai  i  te  taporo  i  te  arahu  i  te  umaru"  the  natives 
termed  the  skirmish.  "The  conflict  of  the  limes,  the 
coal,  and  the  potatoes."  A  new  lumene  was  improvised 
about  it,  and  I  heard  the  girls  of  the  Maison  des  Coco- 
tiers  chanting  it  as  I  went  to  Lovaina's  to  dinner. 

It  was  something  like  this  in  English : 

"Oh,  the  British  men  they  drank  all  day 
And  threw  the  limes  and  iron. 
The  French  in  fear  they  ran  away. 
The  brave  Tahitians  alone  stood  firm." 

And  there  were  many  more  verses. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

Gossip  in  Papeete — Moorea,  a  near-by  island — A  two-days'  excursion  there 
— Magnificent  scenery  from  the  sea — Island  of  fairy  folk — Landing 
and  preparation  for  the  feast — The  First  Christian  mission — A  canoe 
on  the  lagoon — Beauties  of  the  sea-garden. 

MY  acquaintances  of  the  Cercle  Bougainville, 
Landers,  Polonsky,  McHenry,  Llewellyn, 
David,  and  Lying  Bill,  were  at  this  season 
bent  on  pleasure.  Landers,  the  head  of  a  considerable 
business  in  Australasia,  with  a  Papeete  branch,  had  time 
heavy  on  his  hands.  Lying  Bill  and  McHenry  were 
seamen-traders  ashore  until  their  schooner  sailed  for 
another  swing  about  the  French  groups  of  islands. 
Llewellyn  and  David  were  associates  in  planting,  cur- 
ing, and  shipping  vanilla-beans,  but  were  roisterers  at 
heart,  and  ever  ready  to  desert  their  office  and  warehouse 
for  feasting  or  gaming.  Polonsky  was  a  speculator  in 
exchange  and  an  investor  in  lands,  and  was  reputed  to  be 
very  rich.  He,  too,  would  leave  his  strong  box  unlocked 
in  his  hurry  if  cards  or  wassail  called.  These  same 
white  men  were  sib  to  all  their  fellows  in  the  South 
Seas  except  a  few  sour  men  whom  avarice,  satiety,  or 
a  broken  constitution  made  fearful  of  the  future  and 
thus  heedful  of  the  decalogue. 

These  merry  men  attended  to  business  affairs  for  a 
few  hours  of  mornings,  unless  the  night  before  had  been 
devoted  too  arduously  to  Bacchus,  and  the  remainder  of 
the  day  they  surrendered  to  clinking  glasses,  converse, 
Rabelasian  tales,  and  flirting  with  the  gay  Tahitian 
women  in  the  cinemas  or  at  dances.  There  was  a  tol- 

127 


128  MYSTIC  ISLES 

erance,  almost  a  standard,  of  such  actions  among  the 
men  of  Tahiti,  though  of  course  consuls,  high  officials,  a 
banker  or  two  of  the  Banque  de  1'Indo-Chine,  and  a 
few  lawyers  or  speculators  sacrificed  their  flesh  to  their 
ambitions  or  hid  their  peccadillos. 

A  chorus  of  wives  and  widows — there  were  no  old 
maids  in  Tahiti — condemned  scathingly  the  conduct  of 
the  voluptuaries,  and  the  preachers  of  the  gospel  lashed 
them  in  conversation  or  sermon  now  and  then.  But  on 
the  whole  there  was  not  in  Tahiti  any  of  the  spirit  of 
American  towns  and  villages,  which  wrote  scarlet  let- 
ters, ostracized  offenders  against  moral  codes,  and  made 
Philistinism  a  creed.  Gossip  was  constant,  and  while 
sometimes  caustic,  more  often  it  partook  of  curiosity  and 
mere  trading  of  information  or  salacious  prattle. 

Tahitian  women  concealed  nothing.  If  they  won  the 
favors  of  a  white  man,  they  announced  it  proudly,  and 
held  nothing  sacred  of  the  details.  One's  peculiarities, 
weaknesses,  idiosyncrasies,  physical  or  spiritual  blem- 
ishes, all  became  delectable  morsels  in  the  mouths  of  one's 
intimates  and  their  acquaintances.  One's  passions,  ac- 
tions, and  whisperings  were  as  naked  to  the  world  as 
the  horns  on  a  cow.  Every  one  knew  the  import  of 
Polonsky's  dorsal  tattooings,  that  Pastor  -  -  had  a  case 
of  gin  in  his  house,  and  that  the  governor,  after  a  bottle 
or  two  of  champagne,  had  squeezed  so  tightly  the  waist 
of  an  English  lady  with  whom  he  waltzed  that  she  had 
cried  out  in  pain.  Though  bavardage  accounted  for 
much  of  the  general  knowledge  of  every  one's  affairs, 
there  was  an  uncanny  mystery  in  the  speed  at  which  a 
particular  secret  spread.  One  spoke  of  the  bamboo  tele- 
graph. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  129 

It  was  proposed  at  the  Cercle  Bougainville  that  we 
have  a  series  of  jaunts  to  points  some  distance  away.  I 
was  promised  that  I  would  see  fully  the  way  my  ac- 
quaintances enjoyed  themselves  in  the  open.  Llewellyn 
was  given  charge  of  the  first  excursion.  It  was  to 
Moorea,  an  island  a  dozen  miles  or  so  to  the  northwest 
from  Papeete,  and  which,  with  Tetiaria  and  Mehetia  and 
Tahiti,  constitute  Ics  lies  de  Vent,  or  Windward  Islands 
of  the  Society  archipelago. 

In  clear  weather  one  cannot  look  out  to  sea  from 
Papeete,  to  the  north  or  west,  without  Moorea's  weird 
grandeur  confronting  one.  The  island  of  fairy-folk 
with  golden  hair,  it  was  called  in  ancient  days  by  the  peo- 
ple of  other  islands.  A  third  of  the  size  of  Tahiti,  it  was, 
until  the  white  man  came,  the  abode  of  a  romantic  and 
gallant  clan.  Eimeo,  it  was  called  by  the  first  whites, 
but  the  name  of  Moorea  clings  to  it  now.  Over  it  and 
behind  it  sets  the  sun  of  Papeete,  and  it  is  associated  with 
the  tribal  conflicts,  the  religion,  and  the  journeys  of  the 
Tahitians.  Xow  it  is  tributary  to  this  island  in  every 
way,  and  small  boats  run  to  and  from  with  passengers 
and  freight  almost  daily. 

We  met  at  seven  o'clock  of  a  Saturday  morning  at  the 
point  on  the  coral  embankment  where  the  Potii  Moorea 
was  made  fast,  the  gasolene-propelled  cargo-boat  which 
we  had  rented  for  the  voyage.  A  hundred  were  gathered 
about  a  band  of  musicians  in  full  swing  when  I  appeared 
at  the  rendezvous  on  the  prick  of  the  hour.  The  bands- 
men, all  natives  but  one,  wore  garlands  of  purau,  the 
scarlet  hibiscus,  and  there  was  an  atmosphere  of  aban- 
donment to  pleasure  about  them  and  the  party. 

A  schooner  swung  at  her  moorings  near  by,  under  a 


130  MYSTIC  ISLES 

glowing,  flamboyant  tree,  and  her  crew  was  aboard  in 
expectation  of  sailing  at  any  hour.  Another  small 
craft,  a  sloop,  was  preparing  to  sail  for  Moorea,  also. 
She  was  crowded  with  passengers  and  cargo,  and  all 
about  the  rail  hung  huge  bunches  of  feis,  the  mountain 
bananas.  Most  of  the  people  aboard  had  come  from  the 
market-place  with  fruit  and  fish  and  vegetables  to  cook 
when  they  arrived  at  home.  A  strange  habit  of  the 
Tahitians  under  their  changed  condition  is  to  take  the 
line  of  least  resistance  in  food,  eating  in  Chinese  stores, 
or  buying  bits  in  the  market,  whereas,  when  they  gov- 
erned themselves,  they  had  an  exact  and  elaborate 
formula  of  food  preparation,  and  a  certain  ceremonious- 
ness  in  despatching  it.  Only  feasts  bring  a  resumption 
nowadays  of  the  ancient  ways. 

The  crews  of  the  schooner  and  of  the  other  Moorea 
boat  besides  our  own  had  a  swarm  of  friends  awaiting 
the  casting  off.  Even  a  journey  of  a  few  hours  meant 
a  farewell  ceremony  of  many  minutes.  They  embrace 
one  another  and  are  often  moved  to  tears  at  a  separation 
of  a  few  days.  When  one  of  them  goes  aboard  a  steam- 
ship for  America  or  Australasia,  the  family  and  friends 
enact  harrowing  scenes  at  the  quay.  They  are  sincerely 
moved  at  the  thought  of  their  loved  ones  putting  a  long 
distance  between  them,  and  I  saw  a  score  of  young  and 
old  sobbing  bitterly  when  the  Noa-Noa  left  for  San 
Francisco  though  they  stormed  the  stokers  lustily  when 
aroused.  Their  life  is  so  simple  in  these  beloved  islands 
that  the  dangers  of  the  mainland  are  exaggerated  in 
their  minds,  and  to  the  old  the  civilization  of  a  big  city 
appears  as  a  specter  of  horrible  mien.  The  electric  cars, 
the  crowds,  the  murders  they  read  of  and  are  told  of, 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  131 

the  bandits  in  the  picture-shows,  the  fearful  stranglers 
of  Paris,  the  lynchers,  the  police,  who  in  the  films  are 
always  beating  the  poor,  as  in  real  life,  the  pickpockets, 
and  the  hospitals  where  willy-nilly  they  render  one  un- 
conscious and  remove  one's  vermiform  appendix — all 
these  are  nightmares  to  the  aborigines  whose  relations 
are  departing. 

When  heads  were  counted,  Landers's  was  missing, 
and  j  umping  into  Llewellyn's  carriage,  an  old-fashioned 
phaeton,  I  drove  to  Lovaina's,  where  he  occupied  the 
room  next  to  mine  in  the  detached  house  in  the  animal- 
yard.  He  was  sound  asleep,  having  played  poker  and 
drunk  until  an  hour  before;  but  when  I  awoke  him  I 
could  not  but  admire  the  serenity  of  the  man.  His  body 
was  in  the  posture  in  which  he  had  lain  down,  and  his 
breathing  was  as  a  child's. 

"Landers,  get  up !"  I  shouted  from  the  doorway.  He 
opened  his  eyes,  regarded  me  intently,  and  without  a 
word  went  to  the  shower-bath  by  the  camphor-wood 
chest,  returned  quickly,  and  dressed  himself.  I  fancied 
him  a  man  who  would  have  answered  his  summons  be- 
fore a  firing-squad  as  calmly.  He  had  a  perfection  of 
ease  in  his  movements ;  not  fast,  for  he  was  very  big,  but 
with  never  an  unnecessary  gesture  nor  word.  He  was 
one  of  the  finest  animals  I  had  ever  seen,  and  fascinating 
to  men  and  women  of  all  kinds. 

The  Potii  Morca  had  taken  on  her  passengers  when 
we  returned,  and  we  put  off  from  the  sea-wall  at  once, 
with  two  barrels  of  bottled  beer,  and  half  a  dozen  demi- 
johns of  wine  prominent  on  the  small  deck.  Often  the 
sea  between  Tahiti  and  Moorea  is  rough  in  the  daytime, 
and  passage  is  made  at  night  to  avoid  accident,  but  we 


132  MYSTIC  ISLES 

were  given  a  smooth  way,  and  could  enjoy  the  music. 
We  sat  or  lay  on  the  after-deck  while  the  bandsmen  on 
the  low  rail  or  hatch  maintained  a  continuous  concert. 

During  the  several  days  between  our  first  planning  the 
trip  and  the  going,  a  song  had  been  written  in  honor  of 
the  junketing,  and  this  they  played  scores  of  times  be- 
fore we  set  foot  again  in  Papeete.  It  was  entitled: 
"Himene  Tatou  Arearea"  which  meant,  "Our  Festal 
Song." 

One  easily  guessed  the  meaning  of  the  word  liimene. 
The  Polynesians'  first  singing  was  the  hymns  of  the  mis- 
sionaries, and  these  they  termed  himenes;  so  that  any 
song  is  a  liimene,  and  there  is  no  other  word  for  vocal 
music  in  common  use.  The  words  of  the  first  stanza  of 
the  "liimene  Tatou  Arearea"  and  the  refrain  were: 

\  teie  nei  mahana 
Te  terc  no  oe  e  Hati 

Na  te  moana 
Ohipa  paahiahia 

No  te  au 
Tei  tupi  i  Moorea 

tamau  a 
Tera  te  au 
Ei  no  te  au 
Tamua  a — aue 

Ei  reo  no  oe  tau  here 

I  te  pii  raa  mai 

Aue  oe  Tamarii  Tahiti  te  aroha  e 

A  inu  i  te  pia  arote  faarari 

Faararirari  ta  oe  Tamarii  Tahiti 
La,  Li. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  133 

Llewellyn  put  the  words  into  approximate  meaning  in 
English,  saying  it  was  as  difficult  to  translate  these  inti- 
mate and  slang  phrases  -as  it  would  be  to  put  "Yankee 
Doodle"  into  French  or  German.  His  translation,  as 
he  wrote  it  on  a  scrap  of  paper,  was : 

Let  us  sing  joyful  to-day 

The  journey  over  the  sea! 

It  is  a  wonderful  and  agreeable  thing  to  happen  in  Moorea, 

Hold  on  to  it !     That  is  just  it ; 

And  because  it  is  just  it, 

Why  hold  on  to  it ! 

Your  voice,  0,  Love,  calls  to  us. 

O  Tahitian  children, 

Love  to  you ! 

Let  us  all  drink  beer, 

And  wet  our  throats! 

And  wet  them  again 

To  you,  Tahitian  Children ! 

The  bandsmen  were  probably  all  related  to  Llewellyn, 
or  at  least  they  were  of  his  mother's  clan.  His  own  son 
and  nephew  by  unmarried  mothers  were  among  them; 
so  that  they  were  of  our  party,  and  yet  on  a  different 
footing.  They  were  our  guests,  we  paying  them  noth- 
ing, but  they  not  paying  their  scot.  They  did  not 
mingle  with  us  intimately,  although  probably  all  the 
whites  except  myself  knew  them  well,  and  at  times  were 
guests  at  their  houses  outside  Papeete. 

The  air  to  which  the  himene  was  sung  eluded  me  for 
long.  It  was,  "Oh,  You  Beautiful  Doll!"  They  had 
changed  the  tune,  so  that  I  had  not  recognized  it.  The 
Tahitians  have  curious  variations  of  European  and 
American  airs,  of  which  they  adapt  many,  carrying  the 


134  MYSTIC  ISLES 

thread  of  them,  but  differentiating  enough  to  cause  the 
hearer  curiously  mixed  emotions.  It  was  as  if  one  heard 
a  familiar  voice,  and,  advancing  to  grasp  a  friendly 
hand,  found  oneself  facing  a  stranger. 

None  of  these  island  peoples  originally  had  any  music 
save  monotones.  In  fact,  in  Hawaii,  after  the  mission- 
aries, Kappelmeister  Berger,  who  came  fifty  years  ago 
from  Germany  to  Honolulu,  was  largely  the  maker  of 
the  songs  we  know  now  as  distinctively  Hawaiian.  He 
fitted  German  airs  to  Hawaiian  words,  composed  music 
on  native  themes,  and  spontaneously  and  by  adaptation 
he,  with  others,  gave  a  trend  to  the  music  of  Hawaii  nei 
that,  though  European  in  the  main,  is  yet  charmingly 
expressive  of  the  soft,  sweet  nature  of  the  Hawaiians 
and  of  the  contrasts  of  their  delightful  gaiety  and  innate 
melancholy.  These  native  tongues  of  the  South  Seas, 
with  their  many  vowels  and  short  words,  seem  to  be  made 
for  singing. 

The  voyage  from  Tahiti  to  Moorea  was  a  two-hours' 
panorama  of  magnificence  and  anomalism  in  the  archi- 
tecture of  nature.  Facing  my  goal  was  Moorea,  and 
behind  me  Tahiti,  scenes  of  contrary  beauty  as  the  vessel 
changed  the  distance  from  me  to  them.  Tahiti,  as  I 
left  it,  was  under  the  rays  of  the  already  high  sun,  a 
shimmering  beryl,  blue  and  yellow  hues  in  the  overpow- 
ering green  mass,  and  from  the  loftiest  crags  floating  a 
long  streamer-cloud,  the  cloud-banner  of  Tyndal. 

Moorea  was  the  most  astonishing  sight  upon  the  ocean 
that  my  eyes  had  ever  gazed  on.  It  was  as  if  a  moun- 
tain of  black  rock  had  been  carved  by  the  sons  of  Uranus, 
the  mighty  Titans  of  old,  into  gigantic  fortresses,  which 
the  lightnings,  temblors,  and  whirlwinds  of  the  eons  had 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  135 

rent  into  ruins.  Its  heights  were  not  green  like  Tahiti's, 
but  bare  and  black,  true  children  of  the  abysmal  cata- 
clysm which  in  the  time  of  the  making  of  these  oases  of 
the  sea  thrust  them  up  from  the  fires  of  the  deep. 

Far  up  near  the  peak  of  Afareaitu,  nearly  a  mile 
above  the  wave,  in  one  of  the  colossal  splinters  of  the 
basalt  rocks,  was  an  eye,  an  immense  round  hole  through 
which  the  sky  shone.  One  saw  it  plainly  from  Tahiti. 
It  was  made  by  the  giant  Pai  of  Tautira  when  he  threw 
his  spear  a  dozen  miles  and  pierced  a  window  in  the 
solid  granite  that  all  might  know  his  prowess.  One 
felt  like  a  fool  to  rehearse  to  a  Tahitian,  telling  one  the 
tale,  the  statement  of  scientists  that  the  embrasure  had 
been  worn  by  water  when  Afareaitu  was  under  the  ocean 

w 

during  its  million-year  process  of  rising  from  the  mud. 
It  would  be  like  asking  Flammarion,  the  wisest  of 
French  astronomers,  to  cease  believing  in  the  mystery  of 
transubstantiation.  He  would  smile  as  would  the 
autochthon. 

There  was  one  picture  in  murky  monochrome  which 
never  could  be  forgotten — a  long  sierra  of  broken  pinna- 
cles and  crags  which  had  all  the  semblance  of  a  weathered 
and  dismantled  castle.  It  stood  out  against  the  tender 
blue  of  the  morning  sky  like  the  ancient  stronghold  of 
some  grisly  robber-baron  of  medieval  days;  towers  of 
dark  sublimity,  battlements  whence  invaders  might  have 
been  hurled  a  thousand  feet  to  death,  slender  minarets, 
escarpments  and  rugged  casements  through  which 
fleecy  clouds  peeped  from  the  high  horizon.  I  once  saw 
along  the  Mediterranean  in  Italy  or  France  the  fastness 
of  a  line  of  nobles,  set  away  up  on  a  lonely  hill,  glow- 
ering, gloomy,  and  unpeopled,  the  refuge,  mayhap,  of 


136  MYSTIC  ISLES 

the  mountain  goat,  the  abiding-place  of  bats  and  other 
creatures  of  the  night.  Moorea's  fortress  conjured  up 
the  vision  of  it,  its  wondrous  ramparts  and  unscalable 
precipices  strangely  the  counterpart  of  the  Latin  castle. 

But  if  one  dropped  one's  eyes  from  the  hills,  gone  was 
the  recollection  of  aught  of  Europe.  There  was  a  scene 
which  only  the  lavish  colors  of  the  tropics  could  furnish. 
The  artist  had  spilled  all  his  shades  of  green  upon  the 
palette,  and  so  delicately  blended  them  that  they  melted 
into  one  another  in  a  very  enchantment  of  green.  The 
valleys  were  but  darker  variants  of  the  emerald  scheme. 

The  confused  mass  of  lofty  ridges  resolved  into 
chasms  and  combes,  dark,  sunless  ravines,  moist  with  the 
spray  of  many  waterfalls,  which  nearer  became  velvet 
valleys  of  pale  green,  masses  of  foliage  and  light  and 
shadow.  The  mountains  of  Moorea  were  only  half  the 
height  of  Tahiti's,  but  so  artfully  had  they  been  piled  in 
their  fantastic  arrangement  that  they  seemed  as  high, 
though  they  were  entirely  different  in  their  impress  upon 
the  beholder.  Tahiti  from  the  sea  was  like  a  living  be- 
ing, so  vivid,  so  palpitating  was  its  contour  and  its  color, 
but  Moorea,  when  far  away,  was  cold  and  black,  a  beau- 
tiful, ravishing  sight,  but  like  the  avatars  of  a  race  of 
giants  that  had  passed,  a  sepulcher  or  monument  of  their 
achievements  and  their  end. 

As  about  Tahiti,  a  silver  belt  of  reef  took  the  rough 
caresses  of  the  lazy  rollers,  and  let  the  glistening  surf 
break  gently  on  the  beach.  Along  this  wall  of  coral, 
hidden,  but  charted  by  its  crown  of  foam,  we  ran  for 
miles  until  we  found  the  gateway — the  blue  buckle  of  the 
belt,  it  appeared  at  a  distance. 

Within  the  lagoon  the  guise  of  the  island  was  more 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  137 

intimate.  Little  bays  and  inlets  bounded  themselves, 
and  villages  and  houses  sprang  up  from  the  tropic  groves. 
The  band,  which  so  far  as  I  knew  had  not  been  silent  a 
moment  to  awaken  me  from  my  adoration  of  the  sculp- 
ture and  painting  of  nature,  now  poured  out  the 
"Himene  Tatou  Arearea"  in  token  of  our  approaching 
landing,  which  was  at  Faatoai,  the  center  of  population. 
All  its  hundred  or  two  inhabitants  were  at  the  tiny  dock 

0 

to  greet  us,  except  the  Chinese,  who  stayed  in  their 
stores. 

Headed  by  the  pipe  and  accordion,  the  brass  and 
wood,  now  playing  "Onward,  Christian  Soldier," — 
which,  if  one  forgot  the  words,  was  an  especially  carnal 
melody, — we  tramped,  singing  a  parody,  through  the 
street  of  Faatoai,  and  into  a  glorious  cocoanut  grove, 
where  breakfast  was  spread. 

A  pavilion  had  been  erected  for  our  feasting.  It  was 
of  bamboo  and  pandanus,  the  interior  lined  with  tree 
ferns  and  great  bunches  of  scarlet  oleander,  and  decor- 
ated with  a  deep  fringe  woven  of  hibiscus  fiber.  The 
roof  was  a  thatch  of  pandanus  and  breadfruit  leaves,  the 
whole  structure,  light,  flimsy,  but  a  gamut  of  golds  and 
browns  in  color  and  cool  and  beautiful. 

A  table  fifty  feet  or  longer  was  made  of  bamboo,  the 
top  of  twenty  half  sections  of  the  rounded  tubes,  pol- 
ished by  nature,  but  slippery  for  bottles  and  glasses.  A 
bench  ran  on  both  sides,  and  underfoot  was  the  deep- 
green  vegetation  that  covers  every  foot  of  ground  in 
Moorea  except  where  repeated  footfalls,  wheels,  or  labor 
kills  it,  and  which  is  the  rich  stamp  of  tropic  fertility. 

The  barrels  of  beer  were  unheaded,  the  demijohns 
from  Bordeaux  were  uncorked,  and  from  the  opened 


138  MYSTIC  ISLES 

bottles  the  sugary  odor  of  Tahiti  rum  permeated  the  hot 
air.  The  captain  of  the  Potii  Moorea  and  the  hired 
steward  began  to  set  the  table  for  the  dejeuner  and  to 
prepare  the  food,  some  of  which  was  being  cooked  a  few 
feet  away  by  the-  steward's  kin.  The  guests  disposed 
themselves  at  ease  to  wait  for  the  call  to  meat,  the  bands~ 
men  lit  cigarettes  and  tuned  their  instruments  or  talked 
over  their  program,  while  they  wetted  their  throats  with 
the  rum,  as  admonished  by  the  "Himene  Tatou  Area- 
rear 

I  strolled  down  the  road  along  the  shore  of  the  lagoon. 
Here  was  erected  the  first  Christian  church  in  this  archi- 
pelago. British  Protestant  missionaries,  who  had  led  a 
precarious  life  in  Tahiti,  and  fled  from  it  to  Australia  in 
fear  of  their  lives,  were  induced  to  come  here  and  estab- 
lish a  mission.  The  King  of  Tahiti,  Pomare,  had  fled 
to  Moorea  after  a  desperate  struggle  with  opposing 
clans,  and  he  welcomed  the  preachers  as  additions  to  his 
strength.  The  high  priest  of  the  district,  Patii,  col- 
lected all  the  gods  under  his  care,  and  they  were  burned, 
with  a  Bible  in  sight,  to  the  exceeding  fear  of  the  native 
'heathen,  and  the  holy  anger  of  the  other  native  clergy, 
who  felt  as  Moses  did  when  he  saw  his  disciples  worship- 
ing a  golden  calf.  On  the  very  spot  I  stood  had  been 
the  marae,  or  Tahitian  temple,  in  which  the  images  were 
housed,  now  a  rude  heap  of  stones.  A  hundred  years 
ago  exactly  this  exchange  of  deities  had  been  made. 
Alas!  it  could  not  have  been  the  true  Christ  who  was 
brought  to  them,  for  they  had  flourished  mightily  under 
Oro,  and  they  began  almost  at  once  to  die.  Not  peace, 
but  a  sword,  a  sword  of  horrors,  of  frightful  ills,  was 
brought  them. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  139 

There  was  a  little  canoe  under  a  noble  cocoanut-tree 
on  the  shell-strewn  and  crab-haunted  coral  beach,  the 
roots  of  the  palm  partly  covered  by  the  salt  water,  and 
partly  by  a  tangle  of  lilac  marine  convolvulus.  I 
pushed  the  tiny  craft  into  the  brine,  and  paddled  off 
on  the  still  water  of  the  shining  lagoon. 

No  faintest  agitation  of  the  surface  withheld  a  clear 
view  of  the  marvelous  growths  upon  the  bottom.  I 
peered  into  a  garden  of  white  and  vari-colored  flowers 
of  stone,  of  fans  and  vases  and  grotesque  shapes,  huge 
sponges  and  waving  bushes  and  stunted  trees.  Fish  of 
a  score  of  shapes  and  of  all  colors  of  the  spectrum  wove 
in  and  out  the  branches  and  caverns  of  this  wondrous 
parterre. 

Past  the  creamy  reef  the  purple  ocean  glittered  in  the 
nooning  sun,  while  the  motionless  waters  of  the  lagoon 
were  turquoise  and  bice  near  by  and  virescent  in  the  dis- 
tance. Looking  toward  the  shore,  the  edge  of  milky 
coral  sand  met  the  green  matting  of  moss  and  grass,  and 
then  the  eye  marked  the  fields  of  sugar-cane,  the  forests 
of  false  coffee  on  which  grew  the  vanilla-vines,  the  groves 
of  cocoanuts,  and  then  the  fast-climbing  ridges  and  the 
glorious  ravines,  the  misty  heights  and  the  grim  crags. 


CHAPTER  IX 

Jhe  Arearea  in  the  pavilion — Raw  fish  and  baked  feis — Llewellyn,  the 
Master  of  the  Revel;  Kelly,  the  I.  W.  W.,  and  His  Himcne— The  Upau- 
pahura — Landers  and  Mamoe  prove  experts — The  return  to  Papeete. 

THE  company  was  assembled  in  the  pavilion  when 
I  walked  through  the  streets  of  Faatoai  again, 
and  the  food  was  on  the  bamboo  table.  One 
might  have  thought  the  feast  would  have  been  spread  on 
soft  mats  on  the  sward,  as  is  the  Tahitian  custom,  but 
these  whites  are  perverse  and  proud,  and  their  legs  un- 
bending to  such  a  position. 

We  had  raw  fish  cut  up,  with  bowls  of  cocoanut  sauce. 
It  was  delicious  in  taste,  but  raw  fish  is  tough  and  at  first 
hard  to  chew  until  one  becomes  accustomed  to  the  tex- 
ture. Whites  learn  to  crave  it. 

This  fish  was  cut  in  small  pieces  thicker  and  bigger 
than  a  domino,  and  steeped  in  fresh  lime-juice  for  half  a 
day.  The  sauce  was  made  by  pouring  a  cup  of  sea- 
water  over  grated  cocoanuts  and  after  several  hours' 
straining  through  the  fiber  of  young  cocoanut  shoots. 
It  was  thick,  like  rich  cream. 

We  had  excellent  raw  oysters  and  raw  clams  on  the 
shell,  crabs  stewed  with  a  wine  sauce  that  was  delicious, 
fish,  boiled  chicken,  and  baked  pig.  I  had  not  tasted 
more  appetizing  food.  It  was  all  cooked  in  the  native 
fashion  on  hot  stones  above  or  under  ground.  We 
saw  the  pig's  disinterment.  On  the  brink  of  the  stream 
which  flowed  past  the  bower  the  oven  had  been  made. 

140 


MYSTIC  ISLES  141 

The  cooks,  Moorea  men,  removed  a  layer  of  earth  that 
had  been  laid  on  cocoa-palm  leaves.  This  was  the 
cover  of  the  oven.  Immediately  below  the  leaves  were 
yams  and  feis  and  under  them  a  layer  of  banana  leaves. 
The  pig  came  next.  It  had  been  cut  into  pieces  as  big 
as  mutton-chops  and  had  cooked  two  and  a  half  hours. 
It  was  on  stones,  coral,  under  which  the  fire  of  wood 
had  been  thoroughly  ignited,  the  stones  heated,  and  then 
the  different  layers  placed  above.  The  pig  was  tender, 
succulent,  and  the  yams  and  feis  finely  flavored. 

The  two  native  men,  in  pareus,  and  with  crowns  of 
scarlet  hibiscus,  waited  on  us,  while  the  son  of  Llewellyn 
uncorked  the  bottles.  As  usual,  the  beverages  were 
lavishly  dispensed,  beginning  with  Scotch  whisky  as  an 
appetizer,  and  following  with  claret,  sauterne,  vintage 
Burgundy,  and  a  champagne  that  would  have  pleased 
Paris.  These  more  expensive  beverages  were  for  us 
hosts  only. 

We  were  an  odd  company:  Llewellyn,  a  Welsh- 
Tahitian ;  Landers,  a  British  New-Zealander ;  McHenry, 
Scotch- American ;  Polonsky,  Polish-French;  Schlyter, 
the  Swedish  tailor;  David,  an  American  vanilla-grower; 
"Lying  Bill,"  English;  and  I,  American.  There  was 
little  talk  at  breakfast.  They  were  trenchermen  be- 
yond compare,  and  the  dishes  were  emptied  as  fast  as 
filled.  These  men  have  no  gifts  of  conversation  in 
groups.  Though  we  had  only  one  half-white  of  the 
party,  Llewellyn,  he  to  a  large  degree  set  the  pace 
of  words  and  drink.  In  him  the  European  blood,  of 
the  best  in  the  British  Isles,  arrested  the  abandon  of 
the  aborigine,  and  created  a  hesitant  blend  of  dignity 
and  awkwardness.  He  was  a  striking-looking  man, 


142  MYSTIC  ISLES 

very  tall,  slender,  about  fifty  years  old,  swarthy,  with 
hair  as  black  as  night,  and  eyebrows  like  small  mus- 
taches, the  eyes  themselves  in  caverns,  usually  dull  and 
dour,  but  when  he  talked,  spots  of  light.  I  thought  of 
that  Master  of  Ballantrae  of  Stevenson's,  though  for  all 
I  remember  he  was  blond.  Yet  the  characters  of  the 
two  blended  in  my  mind,  and  I  tried  to  match  them  the 
more  I  saw  of  him.  He  was  born  here,  and  after  an  edu- 
cation abroad  and  a  sowing  of  wild  oats  over  years  of 
life  in  Europe,  had  lived  here  the  last  twenty-five  years. 
He  was  in  trade,  like  almost  every  one  here,  but  I  saw  no 
business  instincts  or  habits  about  him,  One  found  him 
most  of  the  time  at  the  Cercle  Bougainville,  drinking 
sauterne  and  siphon  water,  shaking  for  the  drinks,  or 
playing  ecarte  for  five  francs  a  game. 

Below  the  salt  sat  his  son  and  his  nephew,  men  of 
twenty-five  years,  but  sons  of  Tahitian  mothers,  and 
without  the  culture  or  European  education  of  their 
fathers.  With  them  two  chauffeurs  were  seated.  One 
of  these,  an  American,  the  driver  for  Polonsky,  had  tar- 
ried here  on  a  trip  about  the  world,  and  was  persuaded  to 
take  employment  with  Polonsky.  The  other  was  a  half- 
caste,  a  handsome  man  of  fifty,  whose  employer  treated 
him  like  a  friend. 

Breakfast  lasted  two  hours  for  us.  For  the  band  it 
kept  on  until  dinner,  for  they  did  not  leave  the  table 
from  noon,  when  we  sat  down,  until  dark.  When  they 
did  not  eat,  they  drank.  Occasionally  one  of  us  slipped 
down  and  took  his  place  with  them.  I  sat  with  them 
half  an  hour,  while  they  honored  me  with  "Johnny 
Burrown,"  "The  Good,  Old  Summertime,"  and  "Every- 
body Doin'  It." 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  143 

The  heavy  leads  of  the  band  were  carried  by  an 
American  with  a  two-horsepower  accordion.  He  told 
.me  his  name  was  Kelly.  He  was  under  thirty,  a  reso- 
lute, but  gleesome  chap,  red-headed,  freckled,  and  un- 
restrained by  anybody  or  anything.  He  had  no  respect 
for  us,  as  had  the  others,  and  had  come,  he  said,  for 
practice  on  his  instrument.  He  had  a  song-book  of  the 
Industrial  Workers  of  the  World,  a  syndicalistic  group 
of  American  laborers  and  intellectuals,  and  in  it  were 
scores  of  popular  airs  accompanied  by  words  of  dire 
import  to  capitalists  and  employers.  One,  to  the  tune 
of  "Marching  through  Georgia,"  threatened  destruc- 
tion to  civilization  in  the  present  concept. 

"I  'm  an  I.  W.  W.,"  said  Kelly  to  me,  with  a  shell  of 
rum  in  his  hand.  "I  came  here  because  I  got  tired  o' 
bein'  pinched.  Every  town  I  went  to  in  the  United 
States  I  denounced  the  police  and  the  rotten  govern- 
ment, and  they  throwed  me  in  the  calaboose.  I  never 
could  get  even  unlousy.  I  came  here  six  weeks  ago. 
It 's  a  little  bit  of  all  right." 

When  Kelly  played  American  or  English  airs  and  the 
Tahitians  sang  their  native  words,  he  gave  the  I.  W.  W. 
version  in  English.  Some  of  these  songs  were  transpo- 
sitions or  parodies  of  Christian  hymns,  and  one  in  par- 
ticular was  his  favorite.  Apparently  he  had  made  it 
very  popular  with  the  natives  of  the  band,  for  it  vied 
with  the  "Hime-ne  Tatou  Arearea"  in  repetition.  It 
was  a  crude  travesty  of  a  hymn  much  sung  in  religious 
camp-meetings  and  revivals,  of  which  the  proper  chorus 
as  often  heard  by  me  in  Harry  Monroe's  mission  in  the 
Chicago  slums,  was : 


144  MYSTIC  ISLES 

Hallelujah!     Thine  the  glory!     Hallelujah!     Amen! 
Hall  el  uj  ah !     Thine  the  glory !  revive  us  again ! 

Kelly's  version  was : 

Hallelujah!     I 'm  a  bum!     Hallelujah!     Bum  again! 
Hallelujah!     Give  us  a  hand-out!     To  save  us  from  sin. 

He  had  the  stanzas,  burlesquing  the  sacred  lines,  one 
of  which  the  natives  especially  liked: 

Oh,  why  don't  you  work,  as  other  men  do? 

How  the  hell  can  we  work  when  there  's  no  work  to  do? 

None  of  us  had  ever  heard  Kelly's  songs,  nor  had 
any  one  but  I  ever  heard  of  his  industrial  organization, 
and  I  only  vaguely,  having  lived  so  many  years  out  of 
America  or  Europe.  But  they  all  cheered  enthusias- 
tically except  Llewellyn.  He  was  an  Anglican  by 
faith  or  paternal  inheritance,  and  though  he  knew 
nothing  of  the  real  hymns,  they  being  for  Dissenters, 
whom  he  contemned,  he  was  religious  at  soul  and  ob- 
jected to  making  light  of  religion.  He  called  for  the 
"Himene  Tatou  Arearea"  He  took  his  pencil  and 
scribbled  the  translation  I  have  given. 

"This  is  the  rough  of  it,"  he  said.  "To  write  poetry 
here  is  difficult.  When  I  was  at  Heidelberg  and  Paris  I 
often  spent  nights  writing  sonnets.  That  merely  tells 
the  sense  of  the  himene,  but  cannot  convey  the  joy  or 
sorrow  of  it.  Well,  let 's  sink  dull  care  fifty  fathoms 
deep!  Look  at  those  band-boys !  So  long  as  they  have 
plenty  of  rum  or  beer  or  wine  and  their  instruments, 
they  care  little  for  food.  Watch  them.  Now  they  are 
dry  and  inactive.  Wait  till  the  alcohol  wets  thero. 
They  will  touch  the  sky." 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  145 

Llewellyn's  deep-set  eyes  under  the  beetling  brows 
were  lighting  with  new  fires. 

His  idea  of  inactivity  and  drought  was  sublimated,  for 
the  musicians  were  never  still  a  moment.  They  played 
mostly  syncopated  airs  of  the  United  States,  popular  at 
the  time.  All  primitive  people,  or  those  less  advanced 
in  civilization  or  education,  prefer  the  rag-time  variants 
of  the  American  negro  or  his  imitators,  to  so-called  good 
or  classical  music.  It  is  like  simple  language,  easily  un- 
derstood, and  makes  a  direct  appeal  to  their  ears  and 
their  passions.  It  is  the  slang  or  argot  of  music,  hot  off 
the  griddle  for  the  average  man's  taste,  without  com- 
plexities or  stir  to  musing  and  melancholy. 

The  musicians  had  drunk  much  wine  and  rum,  and 
now  wanted  only  beer.  That  was  the  order  of  their 
carouse.  Beer  was  expensive  at  two  francs  a  bottle,  and 
so  a  conscientious  native  had  been  delegated  to  give  it 
out  slowly.  He  had  the  barrel  containing  the  quart- 
bottles  between  his  legs  while  he  sat  at  the  table,  and  each 
was  doled  out  only  after  earnest  supplications  and  much 
music. 

"Horoa  mai  te  pia!"     "More  beer!"  they  implored. 

"Himene"  said  the  inexorable  master  of  the  brew. 

Up  came  the  brass  and  the  accordion,  and  forth  went 
the  inebriated  strains. 

Between  their  draughts  of  beer — they  drank  always 
from  the  bottles — the  Tahitians  often  recurred  to  the 
song  of  Kelly.  Having  no  g,  I,  or  s  among  the  thirteen 
letters  of  their  missionary-made  alphabet,  they  pro- 
nounced the  refrain  as  follows: 

Hahrayrooyah !     I  'm  a  boom !     Hahrayrooyah !     Boomagay ! 
Hahrayrooyah  !     Hizzandow !     To  tave  ut  f ruh  tin ! 


146  MYSTIC  ISLES 

Landers  being  very  big  physically,  they  admired  him 
greatly,  and  his  company  having  been  two  generations  in 
Tahiti,  they  knew  his  history.  They  now  and  again 
called  him  by  his  name  among  Tahitians,  "Taporo- 
Tane,"  ("The  Lime-Man"),  and  sang: 

E  aue  Taw  tiare  ate  el 

Ua  parari  te  afata  el 

I  te  Palii  no  Taporo-Tane  el 

Alas !  my  dear,  some  one  let  slip 

A  box  of  limes  on  the  lime-man's  ship, 

And  busted  it  so  the  juice  did  drip. 

The  song  was  a  quarter  of  a  century  old  and  recorded 
an  accident  of  loading  a  schooner.  Landers's  father's 
partner  was  first  named  Taporo-Tane  because  he  ex- 
ported limes  in  large  quantities  from  Tahiti  to  Xew 
Zealand.  The  stevedores  and  roustabouts  of  the  water- 
front made  ballads  of  happenings  as  their  forefathers 
had  chants  of  the  fierce  adventures  of  their  constant 
warfare.  They  were  like  the  negroes,  who  from  their 
first  transplantation  from  Africa  to  America  had  put 
their  plaints  and  mystification  in  strange  and  affecting 
threnodies  and  runes. 

All  through  the  incessant  himenes  a  crowd  of  natives 
kept  moving  about  a  hundred  feet  away,  dancing  or 
listening  with  delight.  They  would  not  obtrude  on  the 
feast,  but  must  hear  the  music  intimately. 

The  others  of  our  party,  having  breakfasted  until  well 
after  two,  sought  a  house  where  Llewellyn  was  known. 
McHenry  and  I  followed  the  road  which  circles  the 
island  by  the  lagoon  and  sea-beach.  In  that  twelve 
leagues  there  are  a  succession  of  dales,  ravines,  falls, 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  147 

precipices,  and  brooks,  as  picturesque  as  the  landscape 
of  a  dream.  We  walked  only  as  far  as  Urufara,  a  mile 
or  two,  and  stopped  there  at  the  camp  of  a  Scotsman 
who  offered  accommodation  of  board  and  lodging. 

His  sketchy  hotel  and  outhouses  were  dilapidated,  but 
they  were  in  the  most  beautiful  surrounding  conceivable, 
a  sheltered  cove  of  the  lagoon  where  the  swaying  palms 
dipped  their  boles  in  the  ultramarine,  and  bulky  banana- 
plants  and  splendid  breadfruit-tree«  formed  a  temple  of 
shadow  and  coolth  whence  one  might  look  straight  up 
the  lowering  mountain-side  to  the  ghostly  domes,  or 
across  the  radiant  water  to  the  white  thread  of  reef. 

We  met  McTavish,  the  host  of  the  hotel,  an  aging 
planter,  who  kept  his  public  house  as  an  adjunct  of  his 
farm,  and  more  for  sociability  than  gain.  He  was  in 
a  depressed  and  angry  mood,  for  one  of  his  eyes  was 
closed,  and  the  other  battered  about  the  rim  and  begin- 
ning to  turn  black  and  blue. 

He  knew  McHenry,  for  both  had  been  in  these  seas 
half  their  lives. 

"In  all  my  sixty  years,"  he  said,  "I  have  not  been  as- 
saulted quite  so  viciously.  I  asked  him  for  what  he 
owed  me,  and  the  next  I  knew  he  was  shutting  out  the 
light  with  his  fists.  I  will  go  to  the  gendarme  for  a 
contravention  against  that  villain.  And  right  now  I 
will  fix  him  in  my  book." 

"Why,  who  hit  you,  and  what  did  you  do?"  asked 
McHenry. 

"That  damned  Londoner,  Hobson,"  said  McTavish. 
"He  was  my  guest  here  several  years  ago,  and  ate  and 
drank  well  for  a  month  or  two  when  he  had  n't  a  sou 
marquis.  I  needed  a  little  money  to-day,  and  meeting 


148  MYSTIC  ISLES 

him  up  the  road,  I  demanded  my  account.  He  is  thirty 
years  younger  than  me,  and  I  would  have  kept  my  eyes, 
but  he  leaped  at  me  like  a  wild  dog,  and  knocked  me 
down  and  pounded  me  in  the  dirt." 

I  sympathized  with  McTavish,  though  McHenry 
snickered.  The  Scot  went  into  an  inner  room  and 
brought  back  a  dirty  book,  a  tattered  register  of  his 
guests.  He  turned  a  number  of  pages — there  were 
only  a  few  guests  to  a  twelvemonth — and,  finding  his 
assailant's  name,  wrote  in  capital  letters  against  it, 
"THIEF." 

"There,"  he  said  with  a  magnificent  gesture.  "Let 
the  whole  world  read  and  know  the  truth!" 

He  set  out  a  bottle  of  rum  and  several  glasses,  and 
we  toasted  him  while  I  looked  over  the  register.  Hardly 
any  one  had  neglected  to  write  beside  his  name  tributes 
to  the  charm  of  the  place  and  the  kind  heart  of  Mc- 
Tavish. 

Charmian  and  Jack  London's  signatures  were  there, 
with  a  hearty  word  for  the  host,  and  "This  is  the  most 
beautiful  spot  in  the  universe,"  for  Moorea  and  Urufara. 

There  were  scores  of  poems,  one  in  Latin  and  many 
in  French.  Americans  seem  to  have  been  contented  to 
quote  Kipling,  the  "Lotus  Eaters,"  or  Omar,  but  Eng- 
lishmen had  written  their  own.  English  university  men 
are  generous  poetasters.  I  have  read  their  verses  in 
inns  and  outhouses  of  many  countries.  Usually  they 
season  with  a  sprig  from  Horace  or  Vergil. 

"I  'm  goin'  to  the  west'ard,"  said  McTavish.  "There 
are  too  many  low  whites  comin'  here.  When  Moorea 
had  only  sail  from  Tahiti,  the  blackguards  did  not  come, 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  149 

but  now  the  dirty  gasolene  boat  brings  them.  I  must 
be  off  to  the  west'ard,  to  Aitutaki  or  Penrhyn." 

Poor  Mac !  he  never  made  his  westward  until  he  went 
west  in  soldier  parlance. 

McHenry,  on  our  way  back  to  Faatoai,  said: 

"McTavish  is  a  bloody  fool.  He  gives  credit  to  the 
bleedin'  beach-combers.  If  I  meet  that  dirty  Hobson, 
I  '11  beat  him  to  a  pulp." 

From  under  the  thatched  roof  of  our  bower  came  the 
sounds  of: 

Faararirari 

to  oe  Tamarii  Tahiti 
La  Li. 

The  himene  was  in  its  hundredth  encore.  The  other 
barrel  of  bottled  beer  had  been  securely  locked  against 
the  needs  of  the  morrow,  and  the  bandsmen's  inspiration 
was  only  claret  or  sauterne,  well  watered. 

We  sat  down  for  dinner.  The  dejeuner  was  re- 
peated, and  eggs  added  for  variety.  We  had  risen  from 
breakfast  four  hours  before,  yet  there  was  no  lack  of 
appetite.  The  drink  appeared  only  to  make  their  gastric 
juices  flow  freely.  I  hid  my  surfeit.  The  harmonies 
had  by  now  drawn  the  girls  and  young  women  from 
other  districts,  word  having  been  carried  by  natives  pass- 
ing in  carts  that  a  parcel  of  papaa  (non-Tahitians)  were 
faarearea  (making  merry) . 

These  new-comers  had  adorned  themselves  for  the 
taupiti,  the  public  fete,  as  they  considered  it,  and  as  they 
came  along  the  road  had  plucked  ferns  and  flowers  for 
wreaths.  Without  such  sweet  treasures  upon  them  they 


150  MYSTIC  ISLES 

have  no  festal  spirit.  There  were  a  dozen  of  these 
Moorea  girls  and  visitors  from  Tahiti,  one  or  two  from 
the  Tiare  Hotel,  whose  homes  were  perhaps  on  this 
island. 

The  dinner  being  finished,  the  bandsmen  laid  down 
their  instruments  and  the  girls  were  invited  to  drink. 
Tahitian  females  have  no  thirst  for  alcohol.  They,  as 
most  of  their  men,  prefer  fruit  juices  or  cool  water  ex- 
cept at  times  of  feasting.  They  had  no  intoxicants 
when  the  whites  came,  not  in  all  Polynesia.  It  was  the 
humor  of  the  explorers,  the  first  adventurers,  and  all 
succeeding  ones,  to  teach  them  to  like  alcohol,  and  to  hold 
their  liquor  like  Englishmen  or  Americans.  Kings  and 
queens,  chiefs  and  chiefesses,  priests  and  warriors,  wrere 
sent  ashore  crapulous  in  many  a  jolly-boat,  or  paddled 
their  own  canoes,  after  areareas  on  war-ships  and  mer- 
chantmen. Some  learned  to  like  liquor,  and  French 
saloons  in  Papeete  and  throughout  Tahiti  and  Moorea 
encouraged  the  taste.  Profits,  as  ever  under  the  busi- 
ness rule  of  the  world  overweighed  morals  or  health. 

These  girls  in  our  bower  drank  sparingly  of  wine, 
but  needed  no  artificial  spirits  to  spur  their  own.  Music 
runs  like  fire  through  their  veins. 

Iromea  of  the  Tiare  Hotel — perhaps  some  of  Lo- 
vaina's  maidens  knew  our  plans  and  came  over  on  the 
packet — took  the  accordion  from  Kelly.  She  began  to 
play,  and  two  of  the  Moorea  men  joined  her,  one  with 
a  pair  of  tablespoons  and  the  other  with  an  empty  gaso- 
lene-can. The  holder  of  the  spoons  jingled  them  in  per- 
fect harmony  with  the  accordion,  and  the  can-operator 
tapped  and  thumped  the  tin,  so  that  the  three  made  a 
singular  and  tingling  music.  It  had  a  timbre  that  got 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  151 

under  one's  skin  and  pulsated  one's  nerves,  arousing  dor- 
mant desires.  I  felt  like  leaping  into  the  arena  and 
showing  them  my  mettle  on  alternate  feet,  but  a  Moorea 
beauty  anticipated  me. 

She  placed  herself  before  the  proud  Llewellyn,  half  of 
her  own  blood,  and  began  an  upaupahura.  She  pos- 
tured before  him  in  an  attitude  of  love,  and  commenced 
an  improvisation  in  song  about  him.  She  praised  his  de- 
scent from  his  mother,  his  strength,  his  capacity  for  rum, 
and  especially  his  power  over  women.  He  was  own 
brother  to  the  great  ones  of  the  Bible,  Tolomoni  and  Ne- 
butodontori,  who  had  a  thousand  wives.  He  drew  all 
women  to  him. 

The  dance  was  a  gambol  of  passion.  It  was  a  free 
expression  of  uninhibited  sex  feeling.  The  Hawaiian 
hula,  the  nautch,  and  minstrelsy  combined.  So  rapid 
was  the  movement,  so  fast  the  music,  so  strenuous  the 
singing,  and  so  actual  the  vision  of  the  dancer,  that  she 
exhausted  herself  in  a  few  minutes,  and  another  took  the 
turf. 

A  thousand  years  the  Tahitians  had  had  these  upau- 
paliuras.  Their  national  ballads,  the  achievements  of 
the  warrior,  the  fisherman,  the  woodsman,  the  canoe- 
builder,  and  the  artist,  had  been  orally  recorded  and  im- 
pressed in  this  manner  in  the  conclaves  of  the  Arioi. 
Dancing  is  for  prose  gesture  what  song  is  for  the  instinc- 
tive exclamation  of  feeling,  and  among  primitive  peoples 
they  are  usually  separated ;  but  those  cultured  Tahitians 
from  time  immemorial  had  these  highly  developed  dis- 
plays of  both  methods  of  manifesting  acute  sensations. 
The  Kamchadales  of  the  Arctic — curious  the  similarities 
of  language  and  custom  between  these  far  Northerners 


152  MYSTIC  ISLES 

and  these  far  Southerners — danced  like  these  Tahitians, 
so  that  every  muscle  quivered  at  every  moment. 

The  dancing  in  the  bower  was  at  intervals,  as  the  desire 
moved  the  performers  and  bodily  force  allowed.  The 
himene  went  on  continuously,  varying  with  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  dancer  or  the  whim  of  the  accordion-player. 
They  snatched  this  instrument  from  one  another's  hands 
as  the  mood  struck  them,  and  among  the  natives,  men 
and  women  alike  had  facility  in  its  playing.  Pepe  of 
Papara,  and  Tehau  of  Papeari,  their  eyes  flashing,  their 
bosoms  rising  and  falling  tumultuously,  and  their  voices 
and  bodies  alternating  in  their  expressions  of  passion, 
were  joined  by  Temanu  of  Lovaina's,  the  oblique-eyed 
girl  whom  they  called  a  half-Chinese,  but  whose  ancestral 
tree,  she  said,  showed  no  celestial  branch.  Temanu  was 
tall,  slender,  serpent-like,  her  body  flexuous  and  undula- 
tory,  responding  to  every  quaver  of  the  music.  Her  un- 
corseted  figure,  with  only  a  thin  silken  gown  upon  it, 
wreathed  harmoniously  in  tortile  oscillations,  her  long, 
black  hair  flying  about  her  flushed  face,  and  her  soul 
afire  with  her  thoughts  and  simulations. 

Now  entered  the  bower  Mamoe  of  Moorea,  a  big  girl  of 
eighteen.  She  was  of  the  ancient  chiefess  type,  as  large 
as  a  man,  perfectly  modeled,  a  tawny  Juno.  Her  hair 
was  in  two  plaits,  wound  with  red  peppers,  and  on  her 
head  a  crown  of  tuberoses.  She  wore  a  single  garment, 
which  outlined  her  figure,  and  her  feet  were  bare.  She 
surveyed  the  company,  and  her  glance  fell  on  Landers. 

She  began  to  dance.  Her  face,  distinctly  Semitic, 
as  is  not  seldom  the  case  in  Polynesia,  was  fixed  a  little 
sternly  at  first;  but  as  she  continued,  it  began  to  glow. 
She  did  not  sing.  Her  dance  was  the  upaupa,  the  na- 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  153 

tional  dance  of  Tahiti,  the  same  movement  generally  as 
that  of  Temanu,  but  without  voice  and  more  skilled. 
One  saw  at  once  that  she  was  the  premiere  danseuse  of 
this  isle,  for  all  took  their  seats.     Her  rhythmical  sway- 
ing and  muscular  movements  were  of  a  perfection  un- 
excelled, and  soon  infected  the  bandsmen,  now  with  all 
discipline  unleashed.     One  sprang  from  the  table  and 
took  his  position  before  her.     Together  they  danced, 
moving  in  unison,  or  the  man  answering  the  woman's 
motions  when  her  agitation  lulled.     The  spectators  were 
absorbed  in  the  hula.     They  clapped  hands  and  played, 
and  when  the  first  man  wearied,  another  took  his  place. 
Mamoe  stopped,  and  drank  a  goblet  of  rum.     Her 
eyes  wandered  toward  our  end  of  the  table,  and  she  came 
to  us.     She  put  her  hand  on  Landers.     The  big  trader, 
who  was  dressed  in  white  linen,  accepted  the  challenge. 
He  pushed  back  the  bench  and  stood  up. 

Landers  in  looks  was  out  of  a  novel.  If  Henry 
Dixey,  the  handsome  actor,  wrhose  legs  made  his  fame 
before  he  might  attest  his  head's  capacity,  were  ex- 
panded to  the  proportions  of  Muldoon,  the  wrestler,  he 
might  have  been  Landers.  Apparently  about  thirty- 
three,  really  past  forty,  he  was  as  big  as  the  young 
"David"  of  the  Buonarroti,  of  the  most  powerful  and 
graceful  physique,  with  curling  brown  hair,  and  almost 
perfect  features;  a  giant  of  a  man,  as  cool  as  an  igloo, 
with  a  melodious  Australasian  voice  pitched  low,  and  a 
manner  with  men  and  women  that  was  irresistible. 

He  faced  Mamoe,  and  Temanu  seized  the  accordion 
and  broke  into  a  mad  u pan  pa.  An  arm's-length  from 
Mamoe  Landers  simulated  every  pulsation  of  her  quak- 
ing body.  He  was  an  expert,  it  was  plain,  and  his 


154,  MYSTIC  ISLES 

handsome  face,  generally  calm  and  unexpressive,  was 
aglow  with  excitement.  Mamoe  recognized  her  gyra- 
tory equal  in  this  giant,  and  often  their  bodies  met  in 
the  ecstasy  of  their  curveting.  Landers,  towering  above 
her,  and  bigger  in  bone  and  muscle  than  she  in  sheer 
flesh,  was  like  a  figure  from  a  Saturnalia.  The  call 
of  the  isles  was  ringing  in  his  ears,  and  one  had  only  to 
glance  at  him  to  hear  Pan  among  the  reeds,  to  be  back 
in  the  glades  where  fauns  and  nymphs  were  at  play. 

I  saw  Landers  a  care-free  animal  for  the  moment, 
rejoicing  in  his  strength  and  skill,  answering  the  appeal 
of  sex  in  the  dance.  When  he  sat  down  the  animal  was 
still  in  him,  but  care  again  had  clouded  his  brow.  I 
think  our  early  ancestors  must  have  been  much  like 
Landers  in  this  dance,  strong,  and  merry  for  the  time, 
seeking  the  woman  in  pleasures,  fiery  in  movement  for 
the  nonce,  and  relapsing  into  stolidity.  I  can  see  why 
Landers,  who  takes  what  he  will  of  womankind  in  these 
islands,  still  dominates  in  the  trading,  and  bends  most 
people  his  way.  The  animal  way  is  the  way  here. 
The  way  of  the  city,  of  mere  subtlety,  of  avoidance  of 
issues,  of  intellectual  control,  is  not  the  way  of  Poly- 
nesia. Bulk  and  sinew  and  no  fear  of  God  or  man  are 
the  rules  of  the  game  south  of  the  line,  as  "north  of  53." 

With  Landers  dancing,  so  must  the  others.  Hobson 
had  dropped  in,  and  he,  David,  McHenry,  Schlyter, 
and  Lying  Bill,  trod  a  measure,  and  I,  though  with 
only  a  Celtic  urge  and  a  couple  of  years  in  Hawaii  to 
teach  me,  faced  Temanu.  The  bandsmen  could  not  re- 
main still,  and,  with  Kelly  to  play  the  accordion,  the 
rout  became  general.  McHenry  did  not  molest  Hob- 
son,  who  remained. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  155 

When  we  retired  from  the  scene  late  at  night,  the 
upaupa  was  still  active.  We  went  to  the  house  of  Pai, 
a  handsome  native  woman,  whose  half-caste  husband 
was  Mr.  Fuller.  There  were  only  three  beds  in  the 
house,  which  Landers,  Lying  Bill,  and  McHenry  fell 
on  before  any  one  else  could  claim  them.  I  contented 
myself  with  a  mat  on  the  veranda,  and  noticed  that,  be- 
sides the  remainder  of  our  party,  Pai  and  her  tane  were 
also  on  that  level. 

At  half  past  two  in  the  morning  we  lay  down.  I 
could  not  sleep.  From  the  bower  the  song  and  music 
rang  out  continuously,  mingled  with  laughter  and  the 
sounds  of  shuffling  feet. 

I  got  up  at  five,  and  with  a  pareu  about  me,  followed 
the  stream  until  I  found  a  delicious  pool,  where  I  bathed 
for  an  hour,  while  I  read  "The  Ballad  of  Reading 
Gaol."  The  level  land  between  the  sea  and  the  moun- 
tains was  not  more  than  a  quarter  mile  broad,  and  the 
near  hills  rose  rounded  and  dark  green,  with  mysterious 
valleys  folded  in  between  them.  All  about  were  cocoa- 
nuts  and  bananas,  their  foliage  wet  with  the  rain  that 
had  fallen  gently  all  night.  The  stream  was  edged  with 
trees  and  ferns  and  was  clear  and  rippling.  At  that 
early  hour  there  was  no  sensation  of  chill  for  me,  though 
the  men  of  native  blood  balked  at  entering  the  water  un- 
til the  sun  had  warmed  it.  A  Chinese  vegetable- 
grower  sat  on  the  bank  with  his  Chinese  wife  and  cleaned 
heads  of  lettuce  and  bunches  of  carrots.  She  watched 
me  apathetically,  as  if  I  were  a  little  strange,  but  not  in- 
teresting. 

A  dozen  natives  came  by  and  by  to  bathe  in  the  next 
pool.  They  observed  me,  and  called  to  me,  pleasantly, 


156  MYSTIC  ISLES 

"la  ora  na!"  which  is  the  common  greeting  of  the  Tahi- 
tian,  and  is  pronounced  "yuranna."  The  white  is  al- 
ways a  matter  of  curiosity  to  the  native.  These  simple 
people  have  not  lost,  though  generations  of  whites  have 
come  and  bred  and  died  or  gone,  at  least  some  of  their 
original  awe  and  enjoyment  of  their  conquerors  and 
rulers. 

When  we  had  coffee  in  the  morning,  our  serious  and 
distinguished  native  hosts  stood  while  we  ate  and  drank. 
We,  guests  in  their  own  comfortable  house,  did  not  ask 
them  to  join  us.  Llewellyn,  when  I  put  the  question, 
answered : 

"Xo.  I  am  both  white  and  of  too  high  native  rank. 
You  cannot  afford  to  let  the  native  become  your  social 
equal." 

McHenry  said: 

"You  're  bloody  well  right.  Keep  him  in  his  stall, 
and  he  's  all  right;  but  out  of  it,  ye  '11  get  no  peace." 

So  the  gentle  Pai  and  her  husband — they  are  religious 
people,  and  went  to  the  Faatoai  church  three  times  this 
Sunday — stood  while  we  lolled  at  ease.  Courtesy  here 
seems  a  native  trait,  though  even  a  little  native  blood  im- 
proves on  the  white  as  far  as  politeness  is  concerned. 
En  passant,  the  average  white  here  is  not  of  the  leisure 
class,  in  which  manners  are  an  occupation ;  the  native,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  of  a  leisure  class  by  heredity,  and  it 
is  only  when  tainted  by  a  desire  to  make  money  quickly 
or  much  of  it  that  he  loses  his  urbanity. 

We  had  breakfasted  in  the  bower  at  ten  o'clock,  with 
the  band  in  attendance.  Not  one  of  the  musicians  had 
slept  except  Kelly,  who  said  he  had  forty  winks.  When 
the  pastors  and  their  flocks  of  the  various  competing 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  157 

churches  passed  on  their  way  to  services,  the  band  was 
keyed  up  in  G,  and  was  parading  the  streets,  so  that 
the  faith  of  the  Tahitians  was  severely  tried.  Even 
the  ministers  tarried  a  minute,  and  had  to  hold  tightly 
their  scriptures  to  control  their  legs,  which  itched  to 
dance. 

Aboard  the  Potii  Moorea  the  bandsmen  came  sober,  a 
revelation  in  recuperation.  Again  we  passed  the  idyllic 
shores  of  Moorea,  glimpsed  the  grove  of  Daphne  and 
McTavish's  bungalow  at  Urufara,  and  saw  the  heights, 
the  desolated  castle,  the  marvels  of  light  and  shade  upon 
the  hills  and  valleys,  left  the  silver  circlet  of  the  reef, 
and  made  the  open  sea. 

The  glory  of  the  Diadem,  a  crown  of  mountain  peaks, 
stood  out  above  the  mists  that  cover  the  mountains  of 
Tahiti,  and  the  green  carpet  of  the  hills  fell  from  the 
clouds  to  the  water's-edge,  as  if  held  above  by  Antaeus 
and  pinned  down  by  the  cocoanut-trees. 

At  landing  I  discovered  that  the  bandsmen  had  stolen 
away  the  sleeping  Mamoe,  and  had  carried  her  aboard 
the  Potii  Moorea,  and  deposited  her  in  the  hold.  She 
emerged  fresh  from  her  nap,  and  apparently  ready  for 
an  upau pa  that  night.  We  marched  to  the  Cercle  Bou- 
gainville to  recall  the  incidents  of  the  excursion  over 
a  comforting  Dr.  Funk. 


CHAPTER  X 

The  storm  on  the  lagoon;  Making  safe  the  schooners — A  talk  on  missing 
ships — A  singular  coincidence — Arrival  of  three  of  crew  of  the  ship- 
wrecked El  Dorado — The  Dutchman's  story — Easter  Island. 

IT  blew  a  gale  all  one  day  and  night  from  the  north, 
and  at  break  of  the  second  day,  when  I  went  down 
the  rue  de  Rivoli  from  the  Tiare  Hotel  to  the  quay, 
the  lagoon  was  a  wild  scene.     Squall  after  squall  had 
dashed  the  rain  upon  my  verandas  during  the  night,  and 
I  could  faintly  hear  the  voices  of  the  men  on  the  schoon- 
ers as  they  strove  to  fend  their  vessels  from  the  coral 
embankment,  or  hauled  at  anchor-ropes  to  get  more 
sea-room. 

The  sun  did  not  rise,  but  a  gray  sky  showed  the  flying 
scud  tearing  at  the  trees  and  riggings,  and  the  boom  of 
the  surf  on  the  reef  was  like  the  roaring  of  a  great  steel- 
mill  at  full  blast.  The  roadway  was  littered  with 
branches  and  the  crimson  leaves  of  the  flamboyants. 
The  people  were  hurrying  to  and  from  market  in  ve- 
hicles and  on  foot,  soaked  and  anxious-looking  as  they 
struggled  against  the  wind  and  rain.  I  walked  the 
length  of  the  built-up  waterfront.  The  little  boats  were 
being  pulled  out  from  the  shore  by  the  several  launches, 
and  were  making  fast  to  buoys  or  putting  down  two 
and  three  anchors  a  hundred  fathoms  away  from  the 
quays. 

The  storm  increased  all  the  morning,  and  at  noon, 
when  I  looked  at  the  barometer  in  the  Cercle  Bougain- 

158 


Matatini  seeks  a  eocoanut  for  me 


MYSTIC  ISLES  159 

ville  it  was  29.51,  the  lowest,  the  skippers  said,  in  seven 
years.  The  William  Olsen,  a  San  Francisco  barken- 
tine,  kedged  out  into  the  lagoon  as  fast  as  possible,  and 
through  the  tearing  sheets  of  rain  I  glimpsed  other  ves- 
sels reaching  for  a  holding-ground.  The  Fetia  Taiao 
had  made  an  anchorage  a  thousand  feet  toward  the 
reef.  The  waves  were  hammering  against  the  quays, 
and  the  lagoon  was  white  with  fury. 

In  the  club,  after  all  had  been  made  secure,  the  skip- 
pers and  managers  of  trading  houses  gathered  to  dis- 
cuss the  weather.  Tahiti  is  not  so  subject  to  disastrous 
storms  as  are  the  Paumotu  Islands  and  the  waters  to- 
ward China  and  Japan,  yet  every  decade  or  two  a  tidal- 
wave  sweeps  the  lowlands  and  does  great  injury. 
Though  this  occurs  but  seldom,  when  the  barometer 
falls  low,  the  hearts  of  the  owners  of  property  and  of 
the  people  who  have  experienced  a  disaster  of  this 
kind  sink.  The  tides  in  this  group  of  islands  are  dif- 
ferent from  anywhere  else  in  the  world  I  know  of  in 
that  they  ebb  and  flow  with  unchanging  regularity, 
never  varying  in  time  from  one  year's  end  to  another. 

Full  tide  comes  at  noon  and  midnight,  and  ebb  at  six 
in  the  morning  and  six  in  the  evening,  and  the  sun  rises 
and  sets  between  half  past  five  and  half  past  six  o'clock. 
There  is  hardly  any  twilight,  because  of  the  earth's  fast 
rotation  in  the  tropics.  This  is  a  fixity,  observed  by 
whites  for  more  than  a  century,  and  told  the  first  sea- 
men here  by  the  natives  as  a  condition  existing  always. 
Another  oddity  of  the  tides  is  that  they  are  almost  in- 
appreciable, the  difference  between  high  and  low  tide 
hardly  ever  exceeding  two  feet.  But  every  six  months 
or  so  a  roaring  tide  rolls  in  from  far  at  sea,  and,  sweep- 


160  MYSTIC  ISLES 

ing  with  violence  over  the  reef,  breaks  on  the  beach. 
Now  was  due  such  a  wave,  and  its  possibilities  of  height 
and  destruction  caused  lively  argument  between  the 
traders  and  the  old  salts.  More  than  a  dozen  retired 
seamen,  mostly  Frenchmen,  found  their  Snug  Harbor 
in  the  Cercle  Bougainville,  where  liberty,  equality,  and 
fraternity  had  their  home,  and  where  Joseph  bounded 
when  orders  for  the  figurative  splicing  of  the  main- 
brace  came  from  the  tables. 

George  Goeltz,  a  sea-rover,  who  had  cast  his  anchor 
m  the  club  after  fifty  years  of  equatorial  voyaging,  was, 
on  account  of  his  seniority,  knowledge  of  wind  and  reef, 
and,  most  of  all,  his  never-failing  bonhommie,  keeper  of 
barometer,  thermometer,  telescopes,  charts,  and  records. 
When  I  had  my  jorum  of  the  eminent  physician's  Sa- 
moan  prescription  before  me,  I  barkened  to  the  wisdom 
of  the  mariners. 

Captain  William  Pincher,  who  had  at  my  first  meet- 
ing informed  me  he  was  known  as  Lying  Bill,  explained 
to  me  that  some  ignorant  landsmen  stated  that  this  tidal 
regularity  was  caused  by  the  steady  drift  of  the  trade- 
winds  at  certain  hours  of  the  day. 

"That  don't  go,"  said  he,  "for  the  tides  are  the  same 
whether  there  's  a  gale  o'  wind  or  a  calm.  I  've  seen 
the  tide  'ighest  'ere  in  Papeete  when  there  was  n't  wind 
to  fill  a  jib,  and  right  'ere  on  the  leeward  side  of  the 
bloody  island,  sheltered  from  the  breeze.  How  about 
it  at  night,  too,  when  the  trade  quits?  The  bleedin' 
tide  rises  and  falls  just  the  same  at  just  the  same  time. 
Those  trades  don't  even  push  the  tidal  waves  because 
they  always  come  from  the  west'ard,  and  the  trades  are 
from  the  east." 


OF  THE*  SOUTH  SEAS  161 

"I  can  look  out  of  the  veranda  of  this  Cercle  Bougain- 
ville and  tell  you  what  time  it  is  to  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
any  day  in  the  year  just  by  looking  at  the  shore  or  the 
reef  and  seein'  where  the  water  is,"  said  Goeltz.  "You 
can't  do  that  any  place  on  the  globe  except  in  this 
group." 

A  beneficent  nature  has  considered  the  white  visitor 
in  this  concern,  for  he  can  go  upon  the  reef  to  look  for 
its  treasures  at  low  tide,  at  sun-up  or  sun-fall,  when  it 
is  cool. 

We  fell  to  talking  about  missing  ships,  and  Goeltz 
insisted  on  Lying  Bill  telling  of  his  own  masterful  ex- 
ploit in  bringing  back  a  schooner  from  South  America 
after  the  captain  had  run  away  with  it  and  a  woman. 
Pincher  was  mate  of  the  schooner,  which  traded  from 
Tahiti,  and  the  skipper  was  a  handsome  fellow  who 
thought  his  job  well  lost  for  love.  He  became  enam- 
ored of  the  wife  of  another  captain.  One  night  when 
by  desperate  scheming  he  had  gotten  her  aboard,  he  sud- 
denly gave  orders  to  up  anchor  and  away.  The 
schooner  was  full  of  cargo,  copra  and  pearl-shell  and 
pearls,  and  was  due  to  return  to  Papeete  to  discharge. 
But  this  amative  mariner  filled  his  jibs  on  another  tack, 
and  before  his  crew  knew  whither  they  were  bound  was 
well  on  his  long  traverse  to  Peru. 

Lying  Bill  was  the  only  other  white  man  aboard,  and 
he  took  orders,  as  he  had  to  by  law  and  by  the  might  of 
the  swashbuckler  captain.  The  lady  lived  in  the  only 
cabin — a  tiny  corner  of  the  cuddy  walled  off — and  ate 
her  meals  with  her  lover  while  Pincher  commanded  on 
deck.  At  a  port  in  Peru  the  pirate  sold  the  cargo,  and 
taking  his  mistress  ashore,  he  disappeared  for  good  and 


162  MYSTIC  ISLES 

all  from  the  ken  of  the  mate  and  of  the  South  Seas. 

"Now,"  said  Captain  George  Goeltz,  "Bill  here 
could  'a'  followed  suit  and  sold  the  vessel.  Of  course 
they  had  no  papers  except  for  the  French  group,  but 
in  South  America  twenty-five  years  ago  a  piaster  was 
a  piaster.  Bill  was  square  then,  as  he  is  now,  and  he 
borrows  enough  money  to  buy  grub,  and  he  steers  right 
back  to  Papeete.  Gott  im  Himmel!  Were  the  owners 
glad  to  see  that  schooner  again?  They  had  given  her 
up  as  gone  for  good  when  the  husband  told  them  his 
wife  had  run  away  with  the  captain.  That 's  how  Bill 
got  his  certificate  to  command  vessels  in  this  archipelago, 
which  only  Frenchmen  can  have." 

Goeltz  picked  up  the  "Daily  Commercial  Xews"  of 
San  Francisco,  and  idly  read  out  the  list  of  missing 
ships.  There  was  only  one  in  the  Pacific  of  recent  date 
whose  fate  was  utterly  unknown.  She  was  the  schooner 
El  Dorado,  which  had  left  Oregon  months  before  fx>r 
Chile,  and  had  not  been  sighted  in  all  that  time.  The 
shipping  paper  said'. 

What  has  become  of  the  El  Dorado,  it  is,  of  course,  impos- 
sible to  say  with  any  degree  of  accuracy,  but  one  thing  is  almost 
certain,  and  that  is  that  the  likelihood  of  her  ever  being  heard 
of  again  is  now  practically  without  the  range  of  possibility. 
Nevertheless  she  may  still  be  afloat  though  in  a  waterlogged 
condition  and  drifting  about  in  the  trackless  wastes  of  the 
South  Pacific.  Then  again  she  may  have  struck  one  of  the 
countless  reefs  that  infest  that  portion  of  the  globe,  some 
entirely  invisible  and  others  just  about  awash.  She  is  now  one 
hundred  and  eighty-nine  days  out,  and  the  voyage  has  rarely 
taken  one  hundred  days.  She  was  reported  in  lat.  35 :  40  N., 
long.  126 : 30  W.,  174  days  ago. 

"There  '11    be    no    salvage    on    her,"    said    Captain 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  163 

Pincher,  "because  if  she  's  still  afloat,  she  ain't  likely  to 
get  in  the  track  of  any  bloody  steamer.  I  Ve  heard  of 
those  derelic's  wanderin'  roun'  a  bloody  lifetime,  espe- 
cially if  they  're  loaded  with  lumber.  They  end  up 
usually  on  some  reef." 

This  casual  conversation  was  the  prelude  to  the 
strangest  coincidence  of  my  life.  When  I  awoke  the 
next  morning,  I  found  that  the  big  sea  had  not  come 
and  that  the  sun  was  shining.  My  head  full  of  the 
romance  of  wrecks  and  piracy,  I  climbed  the  hill  behind 
the  Tiare  Hotel  to  the  signal  station.  There  I  ex- 
amined the  semaphore,  which  showed  a  great  white  ball 
when  the  mail-steamships  appeared,  and  other  symbols 
for  the  arrivals  of  different  kinds  of  craft,  men-of-war, 
barks,  and  schooners.  There  was  a  cozy  house  for  the 
lookout  and  his  family,  and,  as  everywhere  in  Tahiti, 
a  garden  of  flowers  and  fruit-trees.  I  could  see  Point 
Venus  to  the  right,  with  its  lighthouse,  and  the  bare 
tops  of  the  masts  of  the  ships  at  the  quays.  Gray  and 
red  roofs  of  houses  peeped  from  the  foliage  below,  and  a 
red  spire  of  a  church  stood  up  high. 

The  storms  had  ceased  in  the  few  hours  since  dawn, 
and  the  sun  was  high  and  brilliant.  Moorea,  four 
leagues  away,  loomed  like  a  mammoth  battle-ship,  sable 
and  grim,  her  turrets  in  the  lowering  clouds  on  the  hori- 
zon, her  anchors  a  thousand  fathoms  deep.  The  sun 
was  drinking  water  through  luminous  pipes.  The  har- 
bor was  a  gleaming  surface,  and  the  reef  from  this 
height  was  a  rainbow  of  color.  All  hues  were  in  the 
water,  emerald  and  turquoise,  palest  blue  and  gold.  I 
sat  down  and  closed  my  eyes  to  recall  old  Walt's  lines 
of  beauty  about  the 


164  MYSTIC  ISLES 

— World  below  the  brine. 

Forests  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  the  branches  and  leaves. 

Sea-lettuce,  vast  lichens,  strange  flowers  and  seed. 

The  thick  tangle,  .   .  .   and  pink  turf. 

When  I  looked  again  at  the  reef  I  espied  a  small 
boat,  almost  a  speck  outside  the  coral  barrier.  She  was 
too  small  for  an  inter-island  cutter,  and  smaller  than 
those  do  not  venture  beyond  the  reef.  She  was  down- 
ing her  single  sail,  and  the  sun  glinted  on  the  wet  can- 
vas. I  called  to  the  guardian  of  the  semaphore,  and 
when  he  pointed  his  telescope  at  the  object,  he  shouted 
out: 

"Mais,  cest  curieux!  Et  ees  a  schmall  vessel,  a 
sheep's  boat!" 

I  waited  for  no  more,  but  with  all  sorts  of  conjectures 
racing  through  my  mind,  I  hurried  down  the  hill.  Un- 
der the  club  balcony  I  called  up  to  Captain  Goeltz,  who 
already  had  his  glass  fixed.  He  answered : 

"She  's  a  ship's  boat,  with  three  men,  a  jury  rig,  and 
barrels  and  boxes.  She  's  from  a  wreck,  that 's  sure." 

He  came  rolling  down  the  narrow  stairway,  and  to- 
gether we  stood  at  the  quai  du  Commerce  as  the  mysteri- 
ous boat  drew  nearer.  We  saw  that  the  oarsmen  were 
rowing  fairly  strongly  against  the  slight  breeze,  and 
our  fears  of  the  common  concomitants  of  wrecks, — star- 
vation and  corpses — disappeared  as  we  made  out  their 
faces  through  the  glasses.  They  stood  out  bronzed  and 
hearty.  The  boat  came  up  along  the  embankment,  one 
of  the  three  steering,  with  as  matter  of  fact  an  air  as  if 
they  had  returned  from  a  trip  within  the  lagoon.  There 
was  a  heap  of  things  in  the  boat,  the  sail,  a  tank,  a  bar- 
rel, cracker-boxes,  blankets,  and  some  clothing. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  165 

The  men  were  bearded  like  the  pard,  and  in  tattered 
garments,  their  feet  bare.  The  one  at  the  helm  was 
evidently  an  officer,  for  neither  of  the  others  made  a 
move  until  he  gave  the  order: 

"Throw  that  line  ashore!" 

Goeltz  seized  it  and  made  fast  to  a  ring-bolt,  and  then 
only  at  another  command  did  the  two  stand  up.  We 
seized  their  hands  and  pulled  them  up  on  the  wall. 
They  were  as  rugged  as  lions  in  the  open,  burned  as 
brown  as  Moros,  their  hair  and  beards  long  and  ragged, 
and  their  powerful,  lean  bodies  showing  through  their 
rags. 

"What  ship  are  you  from?"  I  inquired  eagerly. 

The  steersman  regarded  me  narrowly,  his  eyes  squint- 
ing, and  then  said  taciturnly,  "Schooner  El  Dorado." 
He  said  it  almost  angrily,  as  if  he  were  forced  to  con- 
fess a  crime.  Then  I  saw  the  name  on  the  boat,  "JEl 
Dorado  S.  F." 

"Didn't  I  tell  you  so?"  asked  Lying  Bill,  who  was 
in  the  crowd  now  gathered.  "George,  did  n't  I  say  the 
El  Dorado  would  turn  up  ?" 

He  glared  at  Goeltz  for  a  sign  of  assent,  but  the  re- 
tired salt  sought  kudos  for  himself. 

"I  saw  her  first,"  he  replied.  "I  was  having  a  Doctor 
Funk  when  I  looked  toward  the  pass,  and  saw  at  once 
that  it  was  a  queer  one." 

The  shipwrecked  trio  shook  themselves  like  dogs  out 
of  the  water.  They  were  stiff  in  the  legs.  The  two 
rowers  smiled,  and  when  I  handed  each  of  them  a  cigar, 
they  grinned,  but  one  said : 

"After  we  've  e't.  Our  holds  are  empty.  We  Ve 
come  thirty-six  hundred  miles  in  that  dinghy." 


166  MYSTIC  ISLES 

"I  'm  captain  N.  P.  Benson  of  the  schooner  El  Dor- 
ado"  vouchsafed  the  third.  "Where's  the  American 
Counsul?" 

I  led  them  a  few  hundred  feet  to  the  office  of  Dentist 
Williams,  who  was  acting  as  consul  for  the  United 
States.  He  had  a  keen  love  of  adventure,  and  twenty 
years  in  the  tropics  had  not  dimmed  his  interest  in  the 
marvelous  sea.  He  left  his  patient  and  closeted  him- 
self with  the  trio,  while  I  returned  to  their  boat  to  in- 
spect it  more  closely. 

All  the  workers  and  loafers  of  the  waterfront  were 
about  it,  but  Goeltz  would  let  none  enter  it,  he  believing 
it  might  be  needed  untouched  as  evidence  of  some  sort. 
There  are  no  wharf  thieves  and  no  fences  in  Tahiti,  so 
there  was  no  danger  of  loss,  and,  really,  there  was  noth- 
ing worth  stealing  but  the  boat  itself. 

Captain  Benson  and  his  companions  hastened  from 
the  dentist's  to  Lovaina's,  where  they  were  given  a  table 
on  the  veranda  alone.  They  remained  an  hour  secluded 
after  Iromea  and  Atupu  had  piled  their  table  with 
dishes.  They  drank  quarts  of  coffee,  and  ate  a  beef- 
steak each,  dozens  of  eggs,  and  many  slices  of  fried  ham, 
with  scores  of  hot  biscuits.  They  never  spoke  during 
the  meal.  A  customs-officer  had  accompanied  them  to 
the  Tiare  Hotel,  for  the  French  Government  wisely 
made  itself  certain  that  they  might  not  be  an  unknown 
kind  of  smugglers,  pirates,  or  runaways.  Their  boat 
had  been  taken  in  charge  by  the  customs  bureau,  and 
the  men  were  free  to  do  what  they  would. 

When  they  came  from  their  gorging  to  the  garden, 
they  picked  flowers,  smelled  the  many  kinds  of  blossoms, 
and  then  the  sailors  lighted  their  cigars.  This  pair  were 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  167 

Steve  Drinkwater,  a  Dutchman;  and  Alex  Simoneau, 
a  French-Canadian  of  Attleboro,  Massachusetts. 

"Where  's  the  El  Dorado?"  I  asked  of  the  captain. 

Again  he  looked  at  me,  suspiciously. 

"She  went  down  in  thirty-one  degrees:  two  minutes, 
south  and  one  hundred  twenty-one:  thirty-seven  west," 
he  said  curtly,  and  turned  away.  There  was  pride  and 
sorrow  in  his  Scandinavian  voice,  and  a  reticence  not 
quite  explicable.  The  three,  as  they  stood  a  moment 
before  they  wralked  off,  made  a  striking  group.  Their 
sturdy  figures,  in  their  worn  and  torn  clothes,  their 
hairy  chests,  their  faces  framed  in  bushes  of  hair,  their 
bronzed  skins,  and  their  general  air  of  fighters  who  had 
won  a  battle  in  which  it  was  pitch  and  toss  if  they  would 
survive,  made  me  proud  of  the  race  of  seamen  the  world 
over.  They  are  to-day  almost  the  only  followers  of  a 
primeval  calling,  tainted  little  by  the  dirt  of  profit-seek- 
ing. They  risk  their  lives  daily  in  the  hazards  of  the 
ocean,  the  victims  of  cold-blooded  insurance  gamblers 
and  of  niggardly  owners,  and  rewarded  with  only  a  seat 
in  the  poorhouse  or  a  niche  in  Davy  Jones's  Locker.  I 
was  once  of  their  trade,  and  I  longed  to  know  the  hap- 
penings of  their  fated  voyage. 

Xext  morning  the  three  were  quite  ordinary-look- 
ing. They  were  shorn  and  shaved  and  scrubbed,  and 
rigged  out  in  Schlyter's  white  drill  trousers  and  coats. 
They  had  rooms  under  mine  in  the  animal-yard.  They 
were  to  await  the  first  steamship  for  the  United  States, 
to  which  country  they  would  be  sent  as  shipwrecked 
mariners  by  the  American  consulate.  This  vessel  would 
not  arrive  for  some  weeks.  The  captain  sat  outside  his 
door  on  the  balcony,  and  expanded  his  log  into  a  story 


168  MYSTIC  ISLES 

of  his  experiences.  He  had  determined  to  turn  author, 
and  to  recoup  his  losses  as  much  as  possible  by  the  sale 
of  his  manuscript.  With  a  stumpy  pencil  in  hand,  he 
scratched  his  head,  pursed  his  mouth,  and  wrote  slowly. 
He  would  not  confide  in  me.  He  said  he  had  had  suf- 
ferings enough  to  make  money  out  of  them,  and  would 
talk  only  to  magazine  editors. 

"There  's  Easter  Island,"  he  told  me.  "Those  curi- 
osities there  are  worth  writing  about,  too.  I  Ve  put 
down  a  hundred  sheets  already.  I  'm  sorry,  but  I  can't 
talk  to  any  one.  I  'm  going  to  take  the  boat  with  me, 
and  exhibit  it  in  a  museum  and  speak  a  piece." 

He  was  serious  about  his  silence,  and  as  my  inquisi- 
tiveness  was  now  beyond  restraint,  I  tried  the  sailors. 
They  would  have  no  log,  but  their  memories  might  be 
good. 

Alex  Simoneau,  being  of  French  descent,  and  speak' 
ing  the  Gallic  tongue,  was  not  to  be  found  at  the  Tiare. 
He  was  at  the  Paris,  or  other  cafe,  surrounded  by  gap- 
ing Frenchmen,  who  pressed  upon  him  Pernoud,  rum, 
and  the  delicate  wines  of  France.  So  great  was  his 
absorption  in  his  new  friends,  and  so  unbounded  their 
hospitality,  that  M.  Lontane  laid  him  by  the  heels  to 
rest  him.  Simoneau  was  wiry,  talking  the  slang  of  the 
Xew  York  waterfront,  swearing  that  he  would  "hike 
for  Attleboro,  and  hoe  potatoes  until  he  died."  I  was 
forced  to  seek  Steve  Drinkwater.  Short,  pillow-like, 
as  red-cheeked  as  a  winter  apple,  and  yellow-haired,  he 
was  a  Dutchman,  unafraid  of  anything,  stolid,  powerful, 
but  not  resourceful.  I  called  Steve  to  my  room  above 
Captain  Benson's,  and  set  before  him  a  bottle  of 
schnapps,  in  a  square-faced  bottle,  and  a  box  of  cigars. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  169 

"Steve,"  I  said,  "that  squarehead  of  a  skipper  of 
yours  won't  tell  me  anything  about  the  El  Dorado's 
sinking  and  your  great  trip  in  the  boat.  He  said  he  's 
going  to  write  it  up  in  the  papers,  and  make  speeches 
dbout  it  in  a  museum.  He  wants  to  make  money  out 
of  it." 

"Vere  do  ve  gat  oop  on  dat?"  asked  the  Hollander, 
sorely.  "Ve  vas  dere  mit  'im,  und  vas  ve  in  de  museum, 
py  damage?  Dot  shkvarehet  be'n't  de  only  wrider?" 

I  shuddered  at  the  possible  good  fortune.  I  trans- 
fixed him  with  a  sharp  eye.  ) 

"Steve,"  I  asked  gently,  "did  you  keep  a  log?  Pour 
yourself  a  considerable  modicum  of  the  Hollands  and 
smoke  another  cigar." 

"Veil,"  said  the  seaman,  after  obeying  instructions, 
"I  yoost  had  vun  hell  of  a  time,  und  he  make  a  long 
rest  in  de  land,  I  do  py  dammage !  I  keep  a  leedle  book 
from  off  de  day  ve  shtart  ouid." 

I  heard  the  measured  pace  of  the  brave  "shkvarehet" 
below  as  he  racked  his  brains  for  words.  I  would  have 
loved  to  aid  him,  to  do  all  I  could  to  make  widely  known 
his  and  his  crew's  achievements  and  gain  him  fortune. 
However,  he  would  sow  his  ink  and  reap  his  gold  har- 
vest, and  I  must,  by  master  or  by  man,  hear  and  record 
for  myself  the  wonderful  incidents  of  the  El  Dorado's 
wreck.  The  insurance  was  doubtless  long  since  paid 
on  her,  and  masses  said  for  the  repose  of  the  soul  of  Alex 
Simoneau.  The  world  would  not  know  of  their  being 
saved,  or  her  owners  of  the  manner  of  her  sinking,  un- 
til these  three  arrived  in  San  Francisco,  or  until  a  few 
days  before,  when  the  steamship  wireless  might  inf orm 
them. 


170  MYSTIC  ISLES 

Steve  came  back  with  a  memorandum  book  in  whicb 
he  had  kept  day  by  day  the  history  of  the  voyage. 
But  it  was  in  Dutch,  and  I  could  not  read  it.  I  made 
him  comfortable  in  a  deep-bottomed  rocker,  and  I  jot' 
ted  down  my  understanding  of  the  honest  sailor's  Rot- 
terdam English  as  he  himself  translated  his  ample  notes 
in  his  native  tongue.  I  pieced  these  out  with  answers 
to  my  questions,  for  often  Steve's  English  was  more 
puzzling  than  pre-Chaucer  poetry. 

The  El  Dorado  was  a  five-masted  schooner,  twelve 
years  old,  and  left  Astoria,  Oregon,  for  Antofagasta, 
Chile,  on  a  Friday,  more  than  seven  months  before,  with 
a  crew  of  eleven  all  told:  the  captain,  two  mates,  a  Ja- 
panese cook,  and  seven  men  before  the  mast.  She  was 
a  man-killer,  as  sailors  term  sailing  ships  poorly 
equipped  and  undermanned.  The  crew  were  of  all 
sorts,  the  usual  waterfront  unemployed,  wretchedly  paid 
and  badly  treated.  The  niggardliness  of  owners  of 
ships  caused  them  to  pick  up  their  crews  at  haphazard 
by  paying  crimps  to  herd  them  from  lodging-houses  and 
saloons  an  hour  or  two  before  sailing  to  save  a  day's 
wages.  Once  aboard,  they  were  virtual  slaves,  subject 
to  the  whims  and  brutality  of  the  officers,  and  forfeiting 
liberty  and  even  life  if  they  refused  to  submit  to  all 
conditions  imposed  by  these  petty  bosses. 

Often  the  crimps  brought  aboard  as  sailors  men  who 
had  never  set  foot  on  a  vessel.  On  the  El  Dorado  few 
were  accustomed  mariners,  and  the  first  few  weeks  were 
passed  in  adjusting  crew  and  officers  to  one  another, 
and  to  the  routine  of  the  overloaded  schooner.  When 
they  were  fifteen  days  out  they  spoke  a  vessel,  which 
reported  them,  and  after  that  they  saw  no  other.  The 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  171 

mate  was  a  bucko,  a  slugger,  according  to  Steve,  and 
was  hated  by  all,  for  most  of  them  during  the  throes 
of  seasickness  had  had  a  taste  of  his  fists. 

On  the  seventy-second  day  out  the  El  Dorado  was 
twenty-seven  hundred  miles  off  the  coast  of  Chile,  hav- 
ing run  a  swelling  semicircle  to  get  the  benefit  of  the 
southeast  trades,  and  being  far  south  of  Antofagasta. 
That  was  the  way  of  the  wind,  which  forced  a  ship  from 
Oregon  to  Chile  to  swing  far  out  from  the  coast,  and 
make  a  deep  southward  dip  before  catching  the  south- 
west trades,  which  would  likely  stay  by  her  to  her  port 
of  discharge. 

They  had  sailed  on  a  Friday,  and  on  Wednesday,  the 
eleventh  of  the  third  month  following,  their  real  troubles 
began.  Steve's  diary,  as  interpreted  by  him,  after  the 
foregoing,  was  substantially  as  follows,  the  color  being 
all  his : 

"From  the  day  we  sailed  we  were  at  the  pumps  for 
two  weeks  to  bale  the  old  tub  out.  Then  she  swelled, 
and  the  seams  became  tight.  There  was  bad  weather 
from  the  time  we  crossed  the  Astoria  bar.  The  old 
man  would  carry  on  because  he  was  in  a  hurry  to  make 
a  good  run.  The  mate  used  to  beat  us,  and  it 's  a  won- 
der we  did  n't  kill  him.  We  used  to  lie  awake  in  our 
watch  below  and  think  of  what  we  'd  do  to  him  when 
we  got  him  ashore.  All  the  men  were  sore  on  him. 
He  cursed  us  all  the  time,  and  the  captain  said  nothing. 
You  can't  hit  back,  you  know.  He  would  strike  us  and 
kick  us  for  fun.  I  felt  sure  he  'd  be  murdered ;  but 
when  we  got  into  difficulty  and  could  have  tossed  him 
over,  we  never  made  a  motion. 

"On  the  seventy-third  day  out,  came  the  terror.     The 


172  MYSTIC  ISLES 

wind  is  from  the  southeast.  There  is  little  light.  The 
sea  is  high,  and  everything  is  in  a  smother.  We  took 
down  the  topsails  and  furled  the  spanker.  The  wind 
was  getting  up,  and  the  call  came  for  all  hands  on  deck. 
We  had  watch  and  watch  until  then.  That 's  four  hours 
off  and  four  hours  on.  When  the  watch  below  left 
their  bunks,  that  was  the  last  of  our  sleep  on  the  El 
Dorado.  A  gale  was  blowing  by  midnight.  We  were 
working  all  the  time,  taking  in  sail  and  making  all  snug. 
There  was  plenty  of  water  on  deck.  Schooner  was 
bumping  hard  on  the  waves  and  making  water  through 
her  seams.  We  took  the  pumps  for  a  spell. 

"We  had  no  sleep  next  day.  In  the  morning  we  set 
all  sails  in  a  lull,  but  took  them  down  again  quickly,  be- 
cause the  wind  shifted  to  the  northwest,  and  a  big  gale 
came  on.  Xow  began  trouble  with  the  cargo.  We  had 
the  hold  filled  with  lumber,  planks  and  such,  and  on  the 
deck  we  had  a  terrible  load  of  big  logs.  These  were 
to  hold  up  the  walls  and  roofs  in  the  mines  of  Chile. 
Many  of  them  were  thirty-six  feet  long,  and  very  big 
around.  They  were  the  trunks  of  very  big  trees. 
They  were  piled  very  high,  and  the  whole  of  them  was 
fastened  by  chains  to  keep  them  from  rolling  or  being 
broken  loose  by  seas.  In  moving  about  the  ship  we 
had  to  walk  on  this  rough  heap  of  logs,  which  lifted 
above  the  rails.  They  were  hard  to  walk  on  in  a  per- 
fectly smooth  sea,  and  with  the  way  the  El  Dorado 
rolled  and  pitched,  we  could  hardly  keep  from  being 
thrown  into  the  ocean. 

"This  second  day  of  the  big  storm,  with  the  wind  from 
the  northeast,  the  El  Dorado  began  to  leak  badly  again. 
All  hands  took  spells  at  the  pumps.  We  were  at  work 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  173 

every  minute.  We  left  the  ropes  for  the  pumps  and 
the  pumps  for  the  ropes.  We  double-reefed  the  miz- 
zen,  and  in  the  wind  this  was  a  terrible  job.  It  nearly 
killed  us.  At  eight  o'clock  to-night  we  could  not  see 
five  feet  ahead  of  us.  It  was  black  as  hell,  and  the 
schooner  rolled  fearfully.  The  deck-load  then  shifted 
eight  inches  to  starboard.  This  made  a  list  that  fright- 
ened us.  We  were  all  soaking  wet  now  for  days.  The 
after-house  separated  from  the  main-deck,  and  the  \vater 
became  six  feet  deep  in  the  cabin. 

"We  had  no  sun  at  all  during  the  day,  and  at  midnight 
a  hurricane  came  out  of  the  dark.  All  night  we  were 
pulling  and  hauling,  running  along  the  great  logs  in 
danger  always  of  being  washed  away.  We  had  to  lash 
the  lumber,  tightening  the  chains,  and  trying  to  stop  the 
logs  from  smashing  the  ship  to  pieces.  It  did  not  seem 
that  we  could  get  through  the  night. 

"This  is  Friday.  When  a  little  of  daylight  came, 
we  saw  that  everything  was  awash.  The  sea  was  white 
as  snow,  all  foam  and  spindrift.  It  did  not  seem  that 
we  could  last  much  longer.  The  small  boat  that  had 
been  hanging  over  the  stern  was  gone.  It  had  been 
smashed  by  the  combers.  We  should  have  had  it  in- 
board, and  the  mate  was  to  blame.  Now  we  took  the 
other  boat,  the  only  one  left,  and  lashed  it  upright  to 
the  spanker-stays.  In  this  way  it  was  above  the  logs 
and  had  a  chance  to  remain  unbroken. 

"We  sounded  the  well,  and  the  captain  ordered  us 
again  to  the  pumps.  These  were  on  deck  between  the 
logs,  which  were  crashing  about.  We  could  n't  work 
the  pumps,  as  there  was  seven  feet  of  water  in  there  on 
deck.  The  second  mate  spoke  to  the  captain  that  it 


174  MYSTIC  ISLES 

would  be  best  to  start  the  steam  pump.  The  smoke- 
stack and  the  rest  of  the  steam  fittings  were  under  the 
fo'c's'le  head.  It  took  a  long  time  to  get  them  out,  and 
then  the  steam  pump  would  not  work.  The  water 
gained  on  us  all  the  time  now,  and  the  captain  ordered 
us  to  throw  the  deck-load  overboard.  We  were  nearly 
dead,  WTC  were  so  tired  and  sleepy  and  sore.  This  morn' 
ing,  the  cook  served  coffee  and  bread  when  daylight 
came  at  six  o'clock.  That  was  the  last  bit  of  food  01 
drink  we  had  on  the  El  Dorado. 

"The  taking  off  of  the  great  chain  was  a  murderous 
job.  When  we  loosened  it,  the  huge  seas  would  sweep 
over  the  logs  and  us  while  we  tried  to  get  them  over- 
board. It  was  touch  and  go.  We  had  to  use  capstan- 
bars  to  pry  the  big  logs  over  and  over.  We  tried  to 
push  them  with  the  rolling  of  the  ship.  One  wave 
would  carry  a  mass  of  the  logs  away,  and  the  next  wave 
would  bring  them  back,  crashing  into  the  vessel,  catch- 
ing in  the  rigging,  and  nearly  pulling  it  down,  and  the 
masts  with  it.  Dodging  those  big  logs  was  awful  work, 
and  if  you  were  hit  by  one,  you  were  gone.  They  would 
come  dancing  over  the  side  on  the  tops  of  the  waves  and 
be  left  on  the  very  spot  from  which  we  had  lifted  them 
overboard.  The  old  man  should  have  thrown  the  deck- 
load  over  two  days  before.  The  water  now  grew  deeper 
all  the  time,  and  the  ship  wallowed  like  a  waterlogged 
raft.  The  fo'c's'le  was  full  of  water.  The  El  Dorado 
was  drowning  with  us  aboard. 

"We  were  all  on  deck  because  we  had  nowhere  else  to 
go.  There  was  nothing  in  the  cabin  or  the  fo'c's'le  but 
water.  The  sea  was  now  like  mountains,  but  it  stopped 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  175 

breaking,  so  that  there  was  a  chance  to  get  away.  We 
were  hanging  on  to  stays  and  anything  fixed. 

"The  captain  now  gave  up  hope,  as  we  had  long  ago. 
He  ordered  all  hands  to  make  ready  to  lower  the  one 
boat  we  had  left,  and  to  desert  the  ship.  We  had  a 
hard  time  to  get  this  boat  loose  from  the  spanker-stay, 
and  we  lowered  it  with  the  spanker-tackle.  Just  while 
we  were  doing  that,  a  tremendous  wave  swept  the  poop, 
with  a  battering-ram  of  logs  that  had  returned.  Luck- 
ily, the  boat  we  were  lowering  escaped  being  smashed, 
or  we  had  all  been  dead  men  now. 

"We  filled  a  tank  with  twenty-five  gallons  of  water 
from  the  scuttle-butts  and  carried  it  to  the  boat.  The 
old  man  ordered  the  cook  and  the  boy  to  get  some  grub 
he  had  in  a  locker  in  his  cabin,  high  up,  where  he  had 
put  it  away  from  the  flood.  The  cook  and  the  boy  were 
scared  stiff,  and  when  they  went  into  the  cabin,  a  sea 
came  racing  in,  and  all  saved  was  twenty  pounds  of 
soda  crackers,  twelve  one-pound  tins  of  salt  beef,  three 
of  tongue,  thirty-two  cans  of  milk,  thirty-eight  of  soup, 
and  four  of  jam. 

"We  went  into  the  boat  with  nothing  but  what  we 
wore,  and  that  was  little.  Some  of  us  had  no  coats, 
and  some  no  hats,  and  others  were  without  any  shoes. 
We  were  in  rags  from  the  terrible  fight  with  the  logs 
and  the  sea.  The  old  man  went  below  to  get  his  medi- 
cine-chest. He  threw  away  the  medicine,  and  put  his 
log  and  the  ship's  papers  in  it.  He  took  up  his  chro- 
nometer to  bring  it,  when  a  wave  like  that  which  got 
the  cook  and  the  boy  knocked  the  skipper  over  and  lost 
the  chronometer.  All  he  got  away  with  was  his  sextant 


176  MYSTIC  ISLES 

and  compass  and  his  watch,  which  was  as  good  as  a  chro- 
nometer. 

"We  got  into  the  boat  at  four  o'clock.  The  boat  had 
been  put  into  the  water  under  the  stern  and  made  fast 
by  a  rope  to  the  taffrail.  We  climbed  out  the  spanker- 
boom  and  slid  down  another  rope.  The  seas  were  ter- 
rific, and  it  was  a  mercy  that  we  did  not  fall  in.  We 
had  to  take  a  chance  and  jump  when  the  boat  came 
under  us.  Last  came  the  old  man,  and  took  the  tiller. 
He  had  the  oars  manned,  and  gave  the  order  to  let  go. 
That  was  a  terrible  moment  for  all  of  us,  to  cast  loose 
from  the  schooner,  bad  as  she  was.  There  we  were  all 
alone  in  the  middle  of  the  ocean,  bruised  from  the  strug- 
gle on  deck,  and  almost  dying  from  exhaustion  and  al- 
ready hungry  as  wolves.  In  twenty-four  hours  we  had 
had  only  a  cup  of  coffee  and  a  biscuit. 

"It  was  very  dark,  and  we  had  no  light.  We  were, 
however,  glad  to  leave  the  El  Dorado,  because  our  suf- 
fering on  her  for  weeks  had  been  as  much  as  we  could 
bear.  The  last  I  saw  of  the  schooner  she  was  just  a 
huge,  black  lump  on  the  black  waters.  We  rose  on  a 
swell,  and  she  sank  into  a  valley  out  of  sight. 

"The  captain  spoke  to  us  now:  'We  have  a  good 
chance  for  life,'  he  said.  'I  have  looked  over  the  chart, 
and  it  shows  that  Easter  Island  is  about  nine  hundred 
miles  northeast  by  east.  If  we  are  all  together  in  try- 
ing, we  may  reach  there.' 

"None  of  us  had  ever  been  to  Easter  Island,  and 
hardly  any  of  us  had  ever  heard  of  it.  It  looked  like 
a  long  pull  there.  All  night  the  captain  and  the  mate 
took  turns  in  steering,  while  we,  in  turn,  pulled  at  the 
oars.  We  did  not  dare  put  a  rag  of  canvas  on  her,  for 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  177 

the  wind  was  6ig  still.  The  old  man  said  that  as  we 
had  both  latitude  and  longitude  to  run,  we  would  run 
out  the  latitude  first,  and  then  hope  for  a  slant  to  the 
land.  We  were  then,  he  said,  in  latitude  31°  south, 
and  longitude  121°  west.  That  being  so,  we  had  about 
three  hundred  miles  to  go  south  and  about  six  hundred 
east.  He  said  that  Pitcairn  Island  was  but  six  hundred 
miles  away,  but  that  the  prevailing  winds  would  not  let 
us  sail  there.  We  set  the  course,  then,  for  Easter  Island. 
We  wondered  whether  Easter  Island  had  a  place  to 
land,  and  whether  there  were  any  people  on  it.  There 
might  be  savages  and  cannibals. 

"It  rained  steady  all  night,  and  the  sea  spilled  into 
the  boat  now  and  then.  Two  of  us  had  to  bale  all  the 
time  to  keep  the  boat  afloat.  We  were  soaked  to  the 
skin  with  fresh  and  salt  water,  weak  from  the  days  of 
exposure  and  hunger,  and  we  were  barely  able  to  keep 
from  being  thrown  out  of  the  boat  by  its  terrible  rock- 
ing and  pitching,  and  yet  we  all  felt  like  singing  a  song. 
All  but  the  Japanese  cook.  Iwata  had  almost  gone 
mad,  and  was  praying  to  his  joss  whenever  anything 
new  happened.  During  that  night  a  wave  knocked 
him  over  and  crushed  one  of  his  feet  against  the  tank  of 
drinking  water.  The  salt  water  got  into  the  wound  and 
swelled  it,  and  he  was  soon  unable  to  move. 

"The  second  day  in  the  small  boat  was  the  captain's 
forty-eighth  birthday.  The  old  man  spoke  of  it  in  a 
hearty  way,  hoping  that  when  he  was  forty-nine  he 
would  be  on  the  deck  of  some  good  ship.  There  was  no 
sign  of  the  El  Dorado  that  morning.  But  with  wind 
and  sea  as  they  were,  we  could  not  have  seen  the  ship 
very  far,  and  we  had  made  some  distance  under  oar- 


178  MYSTIC  ISLES 

power  during  the  night.  We  put  up  oiir  little  sail  at 
nine  o'clock,  though  the  wind  was  strong.  The  skipper 
said  that  we  could  not  expect  anything  but  rough 
weather,  and  that  we  had  to  make  the  best  of  every 
hour,  considering  what  we  had  to  eat  and  that  we  were 
eleven  in  the  boat.  The  wind  was  now  from  the  south- 
west, and  we  steered  northeast.  We  had  to  steer  with- 
out compass  because  it  was  dark,  and  we  had  no  light. 

"We  had  our  first  bite  to  eat  about  noon  of  this 
second  day  out.  We  had  then  been  nearly  three 
months  at  sea,  or,  to  be  exact,  it  was  seventy-eight  days 
since  we  had  left  port.  It  was  thirty  hours  after  the  cof- 
fee and  biscuit  on  the  El  Dorado,  and  God  knows  how 
much  longer  since  we  had  had  a  whole  meal,  and  now  we 
did  n't  have  much.  The  old  man  bossed  it.  He  took 
a  half -bucket  of  fresh  water,  and  into  this  he  put  a  can 
of  soup.  This  he  served,  and  gave  each  man  two  soda 
crackers  and  his  share  of  a  pound  of  corned  beef.  We 
dipped  the  crackers  into  the  bucket.  (I  tell  you  it  was 
better  than  the  ham  and  eggs  we  had  at  the  hotel  when 
we  landed.)  We  had  this  kind  of  a  meal  twice  a  day, 
and  no  more. 

"The  next  day  the  wind  was  again  very  strong,  with 
thunder  and  lightning,  and  we  ran  dead  before  the  wind 
with  no  more  sail  than  a  handkerchief.  The  sea  began 
to  break  over  the  boat,  and  our  old  man  said  that  we 
could  not  live  through  it  unless  we  could  rig  up  a  sea- 
anchor.  We  were  sure  we  would  drown.  We  made 
one  by  rolling  four  blankets  together  tightly  and  tying 
around  them  a  long  rope  with  which  our  boat  was  made 
fast  to  the  ship  when  we  embarked.  This  we  let  drag 
astern  about  ninety-feet.  It  held  the  boat  fairly  steady, 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  179 

and  kept  the  boat's  head  to  the  seas.  We  fastened  it 
to  the  ring  in  the  stern.  We  used  this  sea-anchor  many 
times  throughout  our  voyage,  and  without  it  we  would 
have  gone  down  sure.  Of  course  we  took  in  a  great 
deal  of  water,  anyhow;  but  we  could  keep  her  baled  out, 
and  the  sea-anchor  prevented  her  from  swamping. 

"The  nights  were  frightful,  and  many  times  all  of  us 
had  terrible  dreams,  and  sometimes  thought  we  were 
on  shore.  Men  would  cry  out  about  things  they 
thought  they  saw,  and  other  men  would  have  to  tell 
them  they  were  not  so.  We  were  always  up  and  down 
on  top  of  the  swells,  and  our  bodies  ached  so  terribly 
from  the  sitting-down  position  and  from  the  joggling 
of  the  motion  that  we  would  cry  with  pain.  The  salt 
water  got  in  all  of  our  bruises  and  cracked  our  hands 
and  feet,  but  there  was  no  help  for  us,  and  we  had  to 
grin  and  bear  it.  A  shark  took  hold  of  our  sea-anchor 
and  we  were  afraid  that  he  would  tear  it  to  pieces. 

"Every  day  the  captain  took  an  observation  when 
he  could,  and  told  us  where  we  were.  We  made  about  a 
hundred  miles  a  day,  but  very  often  we  steered  out  of 
our  course  because  we  had  no  matches  or  lantern. 

"On  the  eighteenth  we  were  in  latitude  26°  53'  South, 
and  the  captain  said  that  Easter  Island  was  in  the  27th 
degree,  so  after  all  we  had  steered  pretty  well. 

"On  the  night  of  the  nineteenth,  we  had  a  fearful 
storm.  It  seemed  worse  than  the  hurricane  we  had 
on  the  El  Dorado.  All  night  long  we  thought  that 
every  minute  would  end  us,  and  we  lay  huddled  in 
misery,  not  caring  much  whether  we  went  down  or  not. 
But  the  next  morning,  we  set  part  of  the  sail  again,  and 
at  noon  that  day  the  captain  took  a  sight  and  found  that 


180  MYSTIC  ISLES 

we  were  in  latitude  27°  8'  south.  Easter  Island  is  27° 
10'  south.  And  now  we  began  to  fear  that  we  might 
run  past  Easter  Island.  If  we  did,  we  knew  we  could 
never  get  back  with  the  wind.  We  had  squall  after 
squall  now,  but  we  felt  sure  that  soon  we  must  see  land. 
Our  soup  was  all  gone,  and  we  were  living  on  the  soda 
crackers  mixed  with  water  and  milk.  Each  of  us  got 
a  cupful  of  this  stuff  once  a  day. 

"On  the  twenty-second,  when  we  were  nine  days  out, 
I  saw  the  land  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning,  thirty  miles 
away.  We  felt  pretty  good  over  that,  and  had  two  cup- 
fuls  of  the  mixture,  because  we  felt  we  were  nearly  safe. 
My  God !  what  we  felt  when  we  saw  the  rise  of  that  land ! 
The  captain  said  it  was  Easter  Island  for  certain,  but 
that  it  was  not  a  place  that  any  merchant  ships  ever 
went,  as  there  was  no  trade  there.  Once  we  saw  the 
land  we  could  not  get  any  nearer  to  it.  We  tried  to 
row  toward  it,  but  the  wind  was  against  us.  Two  days 
we  hung  about  the  back  of  that  island,  just  outside  the 
line  of  breakers.  We  were  afraid  to  risk  a  landing,  for 
the  coast  was  rocky.  On  the  eleventh  day  we  saw  a 
spot  where  the  rocks  looked  white,  and  we  rowed  in  to- 
ward it  with  great  pains  and  much  fear.  A  big  sea 
threw  us  right  upon  a  smooth  boulder,  and  we  leaped 
from  the  boat  and  tried  to  run  ashore.  We  were  weak 
and  fell  down  many  times.  Finally  we  got  a  hold  and 
we  carried  everything  out  of  the  boat,  and  after  hours 
hauled  it  up  out  of  reach  of  the  breakers. 

"There  was  a  cliff  that  went  right  up  straight  from 
the  rocks,  and  we  could  not  climb  it,  we  were  so  weak 
from  hunger  and  the  cramped  position  we  had  had  to 
keep  in  the  boat.  We  laid  down  a  while,  and  then  it 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  181 

was  decided  that  the  first  and  second  mates  should  have 
a  good  feed  and  try  to  get  up  the  precipice.  We  were 
taking  risks,  because  we  had  very  little  grub  left.  It 
was  about  a  hundred  feet  up,  and  we  wratched  them 
closely  as  they  went  slowly  up.  They  did  not  come 
back,  and  we  were  much  afraid  of  what  they  might  find. 
We  did  not  know  but  there  might  be  savages  there. 
During  the  day  the  other  sailors  also  got  up,  leaving 
the  old  man  and  me  to  watch  the  boat. 

"Help  arrived  for  us.  The  mates  had  walked  all 
night,  and  at  daybreak  they  reached  the  house  of  the 
head  man,  employed  by  the  owner  of  Easter  Island.  It 
was  a  sheep  and  horse  island.  The  mates  were  fed,  and 
then  they  went  on  to  the  house  of  the  manager.  Horses 
were  gotten  out,  and  bananas  and  poi  sent  to  us.  The 
water  just  came  in  time,  because  we  were  all  out.  They 
brought  horses  for  all  of  us  then,  and  after  we  had 
started  the  people  of  the  island  went  ahead  and  came 
back  with  water  and  milk,  which  did  us  a  world  of  good. 
At  the  house  of  the  governor  we  had  a  mess  of  brown 
beans,  and  then  we  all  fell  asleep  on  the  floor.  God 
knows  how  long  we  slept,  but  when  we  waked  up  we 
were  like  wolves  again.  We  then  had  beans  with  fresh 
killed  mutton,  and  that  made  us  all  deathly  sick  be- 
cause our  stomachs  were  weak." 

Underneath  us,  while  the  red-cheeked  and  golden- 
haired  Steve  uttered  his  puzzling  sentences  in  English, 
I  heard  from  time  to  time  the  heavy  tread  of  Captain 
Benson.  He  was,  doubtless,  living  over  again  the  hours 
of  terror  and  resolution  on  the  El  Dorado  and  in  the 
boat,  and  seeking  to  find  words  to  amplify  his  log  by 


182  MYSTIC  ISLES 

his  memories.  I  heard  him  sit  down  and  get  up  more 
than  once;  while  opposite  me  in  an  easy-chair,  with  his 
glass  of  Schiedam  schnapps  beside  him,  was  the  virile 
Dutchman,  hammering  in  his  breast-swelling  story  of 
danger  and  courage,  of  starvation  and  storm.  I  sighed 
for  a  dictaphone  in  which  the  original  Dutch-English 
might  be  recorded  for  the  delight  of  others. 

Alex  Simoneau  came  back  after  a  night  of  the  hos- 
pitality of  M.  Lontane,  and  soon  was  joyous  again,  tell- 
ing his  wondrous  epic  of  the  main  to  the  beach-combers 
in  the  pare  de  Bougainville  or  in  the  Paris  saloon,  where 
the  brown  and  white  toilers  of  land  and  sea  make  merry. 

"A  man  that  goes  to  sea  is  a  fool,"  he  said,  with  a 
bang  of  his  fist  on  the  table  that  made  the  schnapps 
dance  in  its  heavy  bottle.  "My  people  in  Massachu- 
setts are  all  right,  and  like  a  crazy  man  I  will  go  to  sea 
when  I  could  work  in  a  mill  or  on  a  farm.  They  must 
think  I  'm  dead  by  now." 

Alex  was  corroborative  of  all  that  Steve  said,  but  I 
could  not  pin  him  down  to  hours  or  days.  He  was  too 
exalted  by  his  present  happy  fate — penniless,  jobless, 
faniily  in  mourning,  but  healthy,  safe,  and  full- 
stomached,  not  to  omit  an  ebullience  of  spirits  incited 
by  the  continuing  wonder  of  each  new  listener  and  the 
praise  for  his  deeds  and  by  the  conviviality  of  his  ad- 
mirers. 

Alex  was  sure  of  one  point,  and  that  was  that  the 
El  Dorado  was  overloaded. 

"Dose  shkvarehet  shkippers  vould  dake  a  cheese-box 
to  sea  mit  a  cargo  of  le't,"  commented  Steve.  "All  dey 
care  for  is  de  havin'  de  yob.  De  owner  he  don't  care  if 
de  vessel  sink  mit  de  insurance." 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  183 

When  Alex  had  shuffled  out  of  the  cottage,  I  gave 
the  Dutchman  the  course  of  his  narrative  again. 

"You  were  safe  on  Easter  Island,  and  ill  from  stuff- 
ing yourself  with  fresh  mutton,"  I  prompted.  "And 
now  what?" 

Steve  spat  over  the  rail. 

"Ram,  lam',  sheep,  und  muddon  for  a  hundred  und 
fife  days.  Dere  vas  noding  odder.  Dot 's  a  kveer 
place,  dot  Easter  Island,  mit  shtone  gotts  lyin'  round 
und  det  fulcanoes,  und  noding  good  to  eat.  Ve  liffed 
in  a  house  de  English  manager  gif  us.  Dere  's  a  Chile 
meat  gompany  owns  de  island,  und  grows  sheep. 
Aboud  a  gouple  of  hundred  kanakas  chase  de  sheep. 
Ve  vas  dreaded  veil  mit  de  vimmen  makin'  luff  und 
the  kanakas  glad  mit  it.  Dere  vas  noding  else  to  do. 
De  manager  he  say  no  ship  come  for  six  months,  und 
he  vanted  us  to  blant  bodadoes,  und  ve  had  no  tobacco. 
He  say  de  bodadoes  get  ripe  in  eight  months,  und  I 
dink  if  I  shtay  dere  eight  months  I  go  grazy.  Ve  vas 
ragged,  und  efery  day  ve  go  und  look  for  a  vessel.  Ve 
gould  see  dem  a  long  vay  ouid,  und  ve  made  signals  und 
big  fires,  but  no  ship  efer  shtopped.  De  shkipper  made 
a  kvarrel  mit  de  mates,  und  de  old  man  he  say  he  go 
away  in  de  boat,  und  he  bick  Alex  und  me  because  ve 
was  de  bestest  sailormen.  Ve  vas  dere  nearly  four 
months  ven  ve  shtart  ouid.  De  oder  men  dey  vas  sore, 
but  dey  vanted  de  old  man  to  bromise  to  gif  dem  big 
money,  und  ve  go  for  noding.  Ve  fix  oop  de  boat  und 
ve  kvit." 

Steve  went  on  to  describe  how  they  fixed  up  the  boat 
for  the  voyage  by  making  guards  of  canvas  about  the 
sides,  and  an  awning  which  they  could  raise  and  lower. 


184  MYSTIC  ISLES 

They  took  a  ten-gallon  steel  oil-drum  and  made  a  stove 
out  of  it.  They  cut  it  in  two  at  the  middle  and  kept  the 
bottom  half.  They  then  made  a  place  for  holding  a 
pot,  with  pieces  of  scrap-iron  fixed  to  the  side  of  the 
drum,  so  that  they  could  make  a  fire  under  the  pot  with- 
out setting  fire  to  the  boat.  Then  the  captain  set  them 
to  learning  to  make  fire  by  rubbing  sticks,  and  after 
many  days  they  learned  it.  The  manager  had  a  steer 
killed,  and  they  jerked  the  meat  and  loaded  up  their 
boat  beside  with  sweet  potatoes,  taro,  white  potatoes, 
five  dozen  eggs,  and  twenty  gallons  of  water  in  their 
tank,  with  twenty-five  more  in  a  barrel. 

Then  bidding  good-by  to  everybody  who  gathered  to 
see  them  off,  they  steered  for  Pitcairn  Island.  They 
soon  found  that  the  prevailing  wind  would  not  permit 
them  to  make  that  course,  and  so  they  laid  for  Man- 
gar  eva  in  23°  south  and  134°  west,  sixteen  hundred 
miles  distant.  They  had  to  go  from  28°  south  and  110° 
west,  5°  of  latitude  and  24°  of  longitude.  Again  they 
were  at  the  mercy  of  the  sea,  but  now  they  had  only 
three  men  in  the  boat,  and  had  enough  food  for  many 
days,  rough  as  it  was.  In  the  latitude  of  Pitcairn,  the 
island  so  famous  because  to  it  fled  the  mutineers  of  the 
Bounty,  they  all  but  perished.  For  two  days  a  severe 
storm  nearly  overwhelmed  them.  The  boat  was  more 
buoyant,  and  with  the  sea-anchor  trailing,  they  came 
through  the  trial  without  injury.  Steve  said  the  light- 
ning was  "y008*  like  a  leedle  bid  of  hell."  It  circled 
them  about,  hissed  in  the  water,  and  finally  struck  their 
mast  repeatedly,  so  that  the  wise  captain  took  it  down. 
The  entire  heavens  were  a  mass  of  coruscating  electri- 
city, and  they  could  feel  the  air  alive  with  it.  They 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  185 

were  shocked  by  the  very  atmosphere,  said  Steve,  and 
feared  for  their  lives  every  moment.  The  sea  piled  up, 
the  wind  blew  a  gale,  and  death  was  close  at  hand. 
They  wished  they  had  not  left  Easter  Island,  and  en- 
vied those  who  had  remained  there. 

But  they  rode  it  out,  with  their  pile  of  blankets  a-trail, 
and  with  helm  and  oars  alert  to  keep  the  boat  afloat. 

The  gale  amended  after  several  days,  and  on  the  six- 
teenth day  from  their  departure  they  reached  Man- 
gareva.  That  island  is  in  the  Gambier  group,  and  a 
number  of  Europeans  live  there.  The  castaways  were 
received  generously,  and  were  informed  that  a  schooner 
was  expected  in  a  fortnight,  which  might  carry  them 
to  some  port  on  their  way  home.  But  the  old  man  said 
they  must  push  on.  He  had  to  report  to  his  owners 
the  loss  of  the  El  Dorado;  he  had  to  see  his  family. 
They  had  come  twenty-six  hundred  miles  since  desert- 
ing the  schooner,  and  the  thousand  miles  more  to  Tahiti 
was  not  a  serious  undertaking.  He  persuaded  Steve 
and  Alex  to  his  manner  of  thinking,  and  with  the  boat 
stocked  with  provisions  they  took  the  wave  again,  after 
a  couple  of  days  at  Mangareva. 

Now  the  bad  weather  was  over.  The  sea  was  com- 
paratively smooth,  and  the  breeze  favorable.  But  fate 
still  had  frowns  for  them,  as  if  to  keep  them  in  terror. 
Sharks  and  swordfish,  as  though  resenting  the  intrusion 
of  their  tiny  craft  in  waters  where  boats  were  seldom 
seen,  attacked  them  furiously.  Five  times  a  giant 
shark  launched  himself  at  their  boat,  head  on,  and  drove 
them  frantic  with  his  menace  of  sinking  them.  They 
were  so  filled  with  this  dread  that  they  fastened  a  mar- 
linespike  in  the  spar,  and  despite  probability  of  provok- 


186  MYSTIC  ISLES 

ing  the  shark  to  more  desperate  onslaughts,  manoeu- 
vered  so  that  they  were  able  to  kill  him  with  a  blow. 

The  next  day  a  swordfish  of  alarming  size  played 
about  them,  approaching  and  retreating,  eying  them 
and  acting  in  such  a  manner  that  they  felt  sure  he  was 
challenging  the  boat  as  a  strange  fish  whose  might  he 
disputed.  One  thrust  of  his  bony  weapon,  and  they 
might  be  robbed  of  their  chance  for  life.  They  shouted 
and  banged  on  the  gunwales,  and  escaped. 

Steve  hurried  through  this  part  of  his  diary.  So 
near  to  safety  then,  he  had  had  not  much  thought  for 
a  record.  There  was  little  more  to  tell,  for  after  the 
lightning,  the  sharks,  and  the  swordfish,  they  had  had 
no  unusual  experiences.  They  had  made  the  voyage  of 
nearly  four  thousand  miles  from  the  pit  of  water  in 
which  they  had  left  the  El  Dorado,  and  were  glad  that 
they  had  not  stayed  behind  on  Easter  Island.  Steve 
had  only  good  words  for  the  skipper's  skill  as  a  seaman, 
but  now  that  they  were  there,  he  would  like  to  be  as- 
sured of  his  wages.  The  captain  said  he  did  not  know 
what  the  owners  would  do  about  paying  Steve  for  the 
time  since  the  El  Dorado  sank.  He  was  sure  she  had 
gone  down  immediately,  for,  he  said,  he  would  not  have 
left  his  ship  had  he  not  been  certain  she  could  not  stay 
on  the  surface.  He  contrasted  his  arrival  in  Papeete 
with  his  coming  years  before  in  the  brig  Lurline,  when 
he  brought  the  first  phonograph  to  the  South  Seas. 
Crowds  had  flocked  to  the  quay  to  hear  it,  and  it  was 
taken  in  a  carriage  all  about  the  island. 

The  superb  courage  of  these  men,  their  marvelous 
seamanship,  and  their  survival  of  all  the  perils  of  their 
thousands  of  miles'  voyage  were  not  lessened  in  inter- 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  187 

est  or  admiration  by  their  personality.  But  one  real- 
ized daily,  as  one  saw  them  chewing  their  quids,  devour- 
ing rudely  the  courses  served  by  Lovaina,  or  talking 
childishly  of  their  future,  that  heroes  are  the  creatures 
of  opportunity.  It  is  true  Steve  and  Alex  were  picked 
of  all  the  crew  for  their  sea  knowledge  and  experience, 
their  nerve  and  willingness,  by  the  sturdy  captain,  and 
that  he,  too,  was  a  man  big  in  the  primitive  qualities,  a 
viking,  a  companion  for  a  Columbus;  but — they  were 
peculiarly  of  their  sept ;  types  molded  by  the  wind-swept 
spaces  of  the  vasty  deep,  chiseled  by  the  stress  of  storm 
and  calm,  of  burning,  glassy  oceans,  and  the  chilling, 
killing  berg;  men  set  apart  from  all  the  creeping  chil- 
dren of  the  solid  earth,  and  trained  to  seize  the  winds 
from  heaven  for  their  wings,  to  meet  with  grim  con- 
tempt the  embattled  powers  of  sky  and  wave,  and  then, 
alas!  on  land  to  become  the  puny  sport  of  merchant, 
crimp,  and  money-changer,  and  rum  and  trull. 

Goeltz,  Lying  Bill,  Llewellyn,  and  McHenry  sat  in 
the  Cercle  Bougainville  with  eager  looks  as  I  read  them 
the  diary  of  Steve  Drinkwater.  The  seamen  held 
opinions  of  the  failure  of  Captain  Benson's  seamanship 
at  certain  points,  and  all  knew  the  waters  through  which 
he  had  come. 

"Many  of  the  people  of  Mangareva  came  from  Easter 
Island,"  said  Lying  Bill.  "There  was  a  French  mis- 
sionary brought  a  gang  of  them  there.  'E  was  Pere 
Roussel,  and  'e  ran  away  with  'em  because  Llewellyn's 
bloody  crowd  'ere  tried  to  steal  'em  and  sell  'em.  They 
lived  at  Mangareva  with  'im  till  he  died  a  few  years 
ago,  and  they  never  went  back." 

Llewellvn  lifted  his  dour  eves.     There  was  never 


188  MYSTIC  ISLES 

such  a  dule  countenance  as  his,  dark  naturally  with  his 
Welsh  and  Tahitian  blood,  and  shaded  by  the  gloom 
of  his  soul.  He  looked  regretfully  at  Captain  Pincher. 

"You  are  only  repeating  the  untruthful  assertion  of 
that  clergyman,"  he  said  accusingly.  "He  put  it  in  a 
pamphlet  in  French.  My  people  have  had  to  do  with 
Easter  Island  for  forty  years.  I  lived  there  several 
years  and,  as  you  know,  I  made  that  island  what  it  is 
now,  a  cattle  and  sheep  ranch.  It  is  the  strangest  place, 
with  the  strangest  history  in  the  world.  If  we  knew  who 
settled  it  originally  and  carved  those  stone  gods  the 
Dutch  sailor  spoke  of,  we  would  know  more  about  the 
human  race  and  its  wanderings. 

"The  Peruvians  murdered  and  stole  the  Easter  Is- 
landers. Just  before  we  took  hold  there,  a  gang  of 
blackbirders  from  Peru  went  there  and  killed  and  took 
away  many  hundreds  of  them.  They  sold  them  to  the 
guano  diggings  in  the  Chincha  Islands.  Only  those 
escaped  death  or  capture  who  hid  in  the  dark  caverns. 
Xearly  all  those  taken  away  died  soon.  We  then  made 
contracts  with  some  of  those  left,  and  took  them  to 
Tahiti  to  work.  It  is  true  they  died,  too,  most  of  them, 
but  some  you  can  find  where  McHenry  lives  half  a  mile 
from  here  at  Patutoa.  We  sold  off  the  stock  to  Chil- 
eans, and  that  country  owns  the  island  now. 

"I  think  the  island  had  a  superior  race  once.  There 
are  immense  platforms  of  stone,  like  the  paepacs  of  the 
Marquesas,  only  bigger,  and  the  stones  are  all  fitted 
together  without  cement.  They  built  them  on  promon- 
tories facing  the  sea.  Some  are  three  hundred  feet  long, 
and  the  walls  thirty  feet  high.  On  these  platforms 
there  were  huge  stone  gods  that  have  been  thrown 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  189 

down;  some  were  thirty-seven  feet  high,  and  they  had 
redstone  crowns,  ten  feet  in  diameter.  There  were 
stone  houses  one  hundred  feet  long,  with  walls  five  feet 
thick.  How  they  moved  the  stones  no  one  knows,  for. 
of  course,  these  people  there  now  were  not  the  builders. 
Some  race  of  whom  they  knew  nothing  was  there  be- 
fore them. 

"They  are  one  of  the  greatest  mysteries  in  the  world. 
Easter  is  the  queerest  of  all  the  Maori  islands.  They 
had  nothing  like  the  other  Maoris  had  in  any  of  these 
islands,  but  they  had  plenty  of  stone,  their  lances  were 
tipped  with  obsidian,  and  they  were  terrible  fighters 
among  themselves.  They  had  no  trees,  and  so  no 
canoes;  and  they  depended  on  driftwood  and  the  hibis- 
cus for  weapons.  They  are  all  done  for  now." 

Captain  Benson  was  still  busied  with  his  log  when 
the  steamship  from  New  Zealand  arrived  to  take  the 
shipwrecked  men  away.  The  El  Dorado's  boat  was 
stowed  carefully  on  the  deck  of  the  liner.  I  saw  the 
skipper  watching  it  as  the  deck-hands  put  chocks  under 
it  and  made  it  fast  against  the  rolling  of  the  ship.  That 
boat  deserved  well  of  him,  for  its  stanchness  had  stood 
between  him  and  the  maws  of  the  sharks  many  days  and 
nights. 

I  bade  him  and  the  two  seamen  good-by  on  the  wharf. 
The  old  man  was  full  of  his  plan  to  exhibit  the  boat  in 
a  museum  and  of  selling  his  account  of  his  adventures 
to  a  magazine. 

The  crew  left  on  Easter  Island  were  rescued  sooner 
than  they  had  expected.  A  British  tramp,  the  Knight 
of  the  Garter,  put  into  Easter  Island  for  emergency 
repairs,  having  broken  down.  The  castaways  left  with 


190  MYSTIC  ISLES 

her  for  Sydney,  Australia,  and  from  there  reached  San 
Francisco  by  the  steamship  Ventura,  ten  months  after 
they  had  sailed  away  on  the  El  Dorado.  That  schooner 
was  never  sighted  again. 


if. 


CHAPTER  XI 

I  move  to  the  Annexe — Description  of  building — The  baroness  and  her 
baby — Evoa  and  poia — The  corals  of  the  lagoon — The  Chinese  shrine—' 
The  Tahitian  sky. 

LOVAINA.  suggested,  since  I  liked  to  be  about 
the  lagoon,  that  I  move  to  the  Annexe,  a  room- 
ing-house she  owned  and  conducted  as  an  ad- 
junct to  the  Tiare.  I  moved  there,  and  regretted  that 
I  had  stayed  so  long  in  the  animal-yard.  And  yet  I 
should  have  missed  knowing  Lovaina  intimately,  the 
hour-to-hour  incidents  of  her  curious  menage,  the  close 
contact  with  the  girls  and  the  guests,  the  El  Dorado 
heroes,  the  Dummy,  and  others. 

The  Annexe  fronted  the  lagoon.  It  was  a  two-story 
building,  with  broad  verandas  in  front  and  rear,  and 
stood  back  a  few  feet  from  the  Broom  Road.  It  had  a 
very  large  garden  behind,  with  tall  cocoanut  trees,  and 
the  finest  rose-bushes  in  Tahiti.  Vava,  the  Dummy, 
put  all  the  sweepings  from  his  stable  on  the  flower  beds, 
and  Lovaina  cut  the  roses  for  the  tables  at  the  Tiare 
Hotel  and  for  presents  to  friends  and  prosperous  tour- 
ists. Vava  was  often  about  the  garden,  and  drove  Lo- 
vaina to  and  fro  in  her  old  chaise. 

When  he  brought  me  and  my  belongings  from  the 
Tiare,  Lovaina  came  with  us.  She  signed  to  him  to  go 
to  the  glacerie,  the  ice-  and  soda-water  factory,  to  buy 
ice  for  the  hotel.  The  Dummy  was  intensely  jealous  of 

191  * 


192  MYSTIC  ISLES 

new-comers  whom  Lovaina  liked.  He  left  on  foot,  but 
merely  took  a  walk,  and,  returning,  answered  her  ques- 
tion by  opening  his  hands  and  shaking  his  head,  convey- 
ing perfectly  the  statement  that  the  glacerie  had  refused 
Lovaina  credit  because  of  her  debt  to  it  of  two  hundred 
francs,  and  that  cash  was  demanded.  He  intimated 
that  the  proprietor  had  ridiculed  her. 

"That  dam'  lie,"  said  Lovaina  to  him  and  to  me, — she 
always  supplemented  her  gestures  to  him  with  words, — 
and  she  made  a  sign  that  she  had  paid  the  bill.  He  ut- 
tered a  choking  sound  of  anger,  accompanied  by  a  dread- 
ful grimace,  and  after  a  little  while  came  back  with  a 
large  piece  of  ice,  which  he  placed  in  the  carriage.  Lo- 
vaina told  him  to  break  off  a  lump  for  my  room.  He 
became  indignant,  and  in  pantomime  vividly  described 
the  suffering  of  guests  at  the  Tiare  with  the  ice  ex- 
hausted, and  Lovaina's  plight  if  she  could  sell  no  more 
drinks. 

Lovaina  persisted,  and  when  I  went  to  take  the  ice 
myself,  he  struck  me  with  his  horsewhip.  Temanu,  who 
had  come  with  Lovaina,  rushed  out  shrieking,  and  the 
Dummy,  seeing  his  advantage,  began  to  threaten  all  who 
came  at  the  noise.  Af  a,  a  half- white,  who  lives  in  a  cot- 
tage in  the  garden,  and  who  alone  could  control  him, 
slapped  his  face.  The  wretched  mute  sat  down  and 
wept  bitterly  until  Lovaina  rubbed  his  back,  and  in- 
formed him  that  he  was  again  in  her  good  graces.  I, 
too,  smiled  upon  him,  and  he  became  a  happy  child  for 
a  moment. 

The  Annexe  was  decaying  fast.  In  the  great  storm 
of  1906  it  was  partly  blown  down,  and  was  poorly  re- 
stored. It  was  the  prey  of  rat  and  insect,  dusty,  neg- 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  193 

lected,  but  endearing.  It  had  had  a  season  of  glory, 
It  was  built  for  the  first  modern  administration  office 
of  the  French  Government,  over  sixty  years  before,  and 
was  painted  white  with  blue  trimmings.  In  its  bare 
and  dusty  entrance-hall  hung  two  steel  engravings  en- 
titled, "The  Beginning  of  the  Civil  War  in  the  United 
States"  and  "The  End  of  the  Civil  War  in  the  United 
States."  The  former  showed  Freedom  in  the  center; 
Justice  with  a  sword  and  balance;  the  Stars  and  Stripes 
being  torn  from  a  liberty-tree,  with  a  snake  winding 
about  it ;  an  aged  man  labeled  Buchanan  asleep  on  a  big 
book ;  and  a  gentleman  named  Floyd  counting  a  bag  of 
money;  on  the  other  side  Abraham  Lincoln  exhorted  a 
white-haired  general  who  commanded  a  file  of  soldiers, 
and  some  rich-looking  men  were  throwing  money  on  the 
floor. 

The  other  picture  was  indeed  florid.  It  represented 
three  ladies,  Freedom,  Justice,  and  Mercy,  disputing 
the  center,  slaves  being  unshackled,  the  army  of  victory 
led  by  Grant  claiming  honors,  Lee  handing  over  a 
sword,  an  ugly  fellow  toting  off  a  bag  of  gold  (graft?) 
and  a  gang  of  conspirators  egging  on  the  madman 
Booth  to  slay  Lincoln.  In  both  these  engravings  there 
were  scores  of  supposed  likenesses,  but  I  could  not 
identify  them.  They  were  published  by  Kimmel  & 
Forster  in  Xew  York  in  1865,  and  had  probably  decor- 
ated Papeete  walls  for  half  a  century.  There  were 
large,  ramshackle  chambers  on  the  first  floor,  and  an  ex- 
quisite winding  staircase,  with  a  rosewood  balustrade, 
led  to  the  second  story,  where  I  lived. 

In  this  building  all  the  pomp  and  circumstance  of  the 
Nations  in  Tahiti  had  been  on  parade,  kings  and  queens 


194  MYSTIC  ISLES 

of  the  island  had  pleaded  and  submitted,  admirals  and 
ensigns  had  whispered  love  to  dusky  vahines,  and  the 
petty  wars  of  Oceanic  had  been  planned  between 
waltzes  and  wines.  Here  Loti  put  his  arms  about  his 
first  Tahitian  sweetheart,  and  practised  that  vocabulary 
of  love  he  used  so  well  in  "Rarahu,"  "Madame  Chrysan- 
theme,"  and  his  other  studies  of  the  exotic  woman.  A 
hundred  noted  men,  soldiers,  and  sailors,  scientists  and 
dilettanti,  governors  and  writers,  had  walked  or  worked 
in  those  tumbling  rooms. 

Lovaina  had  owned  the  building  many  years,  buying 
it  from  the  thrifty  French  Government. 

My  apartment  was  of  two  rooms,  and  my  section  of 
the  balcony  was  cut  off  by  a  door,  giving  privacy  unusual 
in  Tahiti.  The  coloring  of  the  wall  was  rich  in  hue. 

Any  color,  so  it 's  red,  said  a  satirist,  who  might  have 
been  characterizing  my  rooms.  Turkey-red  muslin 
with  a  large,  white  diamond  figure  was  pasted  on  the 
plaster  walls  and  hung  in  the  doorways. 

"It  very  bes'  the  baroness  could  do  in  T'ytee,"  ex- 
plained Lovaina.  "She  must  be  bright  all  about,  and 
she  buy  and  fix  rooms.  She  have  whole  top  floor  An- 
nexe, and  spen'  money  like  gentleman,  two  or  three 
thousand  dollar'  every  month.  I  wish  you  know  her. 
She  talk  beautiful',  and  never  one  word  smut.  Hones', 
true.  Johnny,  my  son,  read  'Three  Weeks'  that  time, 
and  he  speak  the  baroness,  'You  jus'  like  that  woman 
in  the  book.'  She  have  baby  here  and  take  with  her  to 
Paris.  She  want  that  baby  jus'  like  'Three  Weeks/ 
Oh,  but  she  live  high!  She  have  her  own  servants,  get 
everything  in  market,  bring  peacocks  and  pheasants  and 
turkeys  from  America.  How  you  think?  Dead?  Xo. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  195 

She  sen'  man  to  bring  on  foot  on  boat.  You  go  visit 
her,  she  give  champagne  jus'  like  Papenoo  River.  She 
beautiful?  My  God!  I  tell  you  she  like  angel.  She 
speak  French,  English,  Russian,  German,  Italian,  any- 
thing the  same.  She  good,  but  she  don't  care  a  dam' 
what  people  say.  When  she  go  'way  Europe  she  give 
frien's  all  her  thing'.  Now  she  back  in  her  palace  with 
her  baby.  She  write  once  say  she  come  back  T'ytee 
some  day  by'n'by.  She  love  T'ytee  somethin'  crazee." 

At  the  Cercle  Bougainville  Captain  William  Pincher 
told  me  more  of  the  baroness. 

"Is  the  bloody  meat-safe  still  on  the  back  porch? 
The  baroness  made  a  voyage  with  me  to  the  Paumotus 
just  for  the  air.  She  sat  on  deck  all  the  time,  rain  or 
shine.  I  'd  put  a'  awnin'  over  'er  in  fair  weather  or 
when  it  rained  and  there  was  n't  much  wind.  She  was 
a  bloody  good  sailor,  too,  and  ate  like  us,  only  she  never 
went  below  except  at  night.  I  give  her  my  cabin. 
She  'd  spen'  hours  lookin'  over  the  side  in  a  calm — we 
had  no  engine — an'  she  'd  listen  to  all  the  yarns." 

Lying  Bill  burst  out  with  one  of  his  choicest  oaths. 

"She  was  n't  like  some  of  those  ladees  I  've  'ad 
aboard.  She  was  a  proper  salt-water  lass.  She  loved 
to  'ear  my  yarns  of  the  sea.  When  she  was  big  with 
child  an'  I  ashore,  I  'ad  the  'abit  o'  droppin'  in  o'  after- 
noons and  'avin'  a  slice  of  'am  or  chicken  out  o'  the 
safe.  Afa  ran  'er  bloody  show  for  'er,  an'  it  cost  'er 
a  bloody  fortune.  I  used  to  lie  for  'er  to  'ear  'er 
laugh.  You  know  I  'm  called  Lyin'  Bill,  but  Mc- 
Henry  tells  more  real  lies  in  a  day  than  I  do  in  a  bloody 
year.  She  was  the  finest-looking  girl  of  the  delicate 
kind  I  ever  saw,  all  pink  and  white  an'  with  fringy 


196  MYSTIC  ISLES 

clothes  an'  little  feet.  Oh!  there  was  nothing  between 
us  but  the  sea,  an'  I  know  that  subject." 

Lying  Bill  sighed  like  a  diver  just  up  from  the  bot- 
tom of  the  lagoon. 

"You  know  that  big  cocoanut  tree  in  the  garden  of 
the  Annexe?  She  would  sit  under  that  with  me  an' 
smoke  her  Cairo  cigarettes  an'  talk  about  her  bally  kid- 
die. She  wanted  him  to  be  strong  an'  to  love  the  sea, 
and  she  thought  by  talking  with  me  about  'im  an'  ships 
an'  the  ocean  she  could  sort  of  train  him  that  way, 
though  he  'd  been  got  in  Paris  an'  might  be  a  girl.  Is 
there  anything  in  that  bleedin'  idea?  She  could  quote 
books  all  right  about  it." 

Ah,  beautiful  and  brave  baroness!  I  often  thought 
of  you  during  those  months  in  the  Annexe.  You  will 
come  again,  you  say,  to  Tahiti,  bathe  again  in  its  witch- 
ing waters,  and  let  the  spell  of  its  sweetness  bind  you 
again  to  its  soil.  Maybe,  but  baroness,  you  will  never 
again  be  as  you  were,  flinging  all  body  and  soul  into 
the  fire  of  passion,  and  yearning  for  motherhood! 
Such  times  can  never  be  the  same.  We  burn,  even  de- 
sire, and  consume  our  dreams.  Child  of  aristocracy, 
you  found  in  this  South  Sea  eyot  the  freedom  your  atav- 
ism, or  shall  I  say,  naturalness,  craved,  and  you  drank 
your  cup  to  the  lees  and  thought  it  good.  I  shall  not 
be  the  one  to  point  a  finger  at  you,  nor  even  to  think  too 
vivid  the  scarlet  of  my  toilet  set.  That  flamboyant 
outside  my  window,  once  yours,  is  as  garish,  and  yet 
lacks  no  consonance  with  all  about  it. 

The  scene  from  my  veranda  was  a  changing  picture 
of  radiance  and  shadow.  Directly  below  was  the 
Broom  Road.  Umbrageous  flamboyants — the  royal 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  197 

poincianas,  or  flame-trees — sheltered  the  short  stretch 
of  sward  to  the  water,  and  their  blossoms  made  a  red- 
gold  litter  upon  the  grass.  A  giant  acacia  whose  flow- 
ers were  reddish  pink  and  looked  like  thistle  blooms, 
protected  two  canoes,  one  my  own  and  one  Afa's.  The 
Annexe  was  bounded  by  the  Broom  Road  and  the  rue 
de  Bougainville,  and  across  that  street  was  the  restaur- 
ant of  Mme.  Fanny.  It  was  built  over  a  tiny  stream, 
which  emptied  fifty  feet  away  into  the  lagoon.  A 
clump  of  banana-trees  hid  the  patrons,  but  did  not  ob- 
scure their  view  from  Fanny's  balcony. 

In  the  lagoon,  a  thousand  yards  from  me,  was  Motu 
Uta,  a  tiny  island  ringed  with  golden  sand,  a  mass  of 
green  trees  half  disclosing  a  gray  house.  Motu  Uta 
was  a  gem  incomparable  in  its  beauty  and  its  setting. 
It  had  been  the  place  of  revels  of  old  kings  and  chiefs, 
and  Pomare  the  Fourth  had  made  it  his  residence.  Cut 
off  by  half  a  mile  of  water  from  Papeete,  it  had  an  iso- 
lation, yet  propinquity,  which  would  have  persuaded 
me  to  make  it  my  home  were  I  a  governor ;  but  it  was 
given  over  to  quarantine  purposes,  with  an  old  care- 
taker who  came  and  went  in  a  commonplace  rowboat. 

The  Annexe  housed  many  rats.  I  brought  to  my 
rooms  a  basket  of  bananas,  and  put  it  on  a  table  by  my 
bed,  the  canopied  four-poster  in  which  the  son  of  the 
baroness  was  born.  In  the  night  I  was  awakened  by  a 
tremendous  thump  on  the  floor  and  a  curious  dragging 
noise.  I  listened  breathlessly.  But  the  rat  must  have 
heard  me,  for  he  ceased  operations,  only  returning  when 
he  thought  I  was  asleep.  He  leaped  on  the  table, 
scratched  a  banana  from  the  basket,  threw  it  to  the  floor, 
and  pulled  it  to  his  den  near  the  wardrobe.  The  joists 


198  MYSTIC  ISLES 

and  floor  boards  were  eaten  away  by  the  ants,  and  in 
one  hole  six  or  seven  inches  long  this  rat  had  entrance 
to  his  den  between  the  floor  and  the  ceiling  of  the  room 
below.  He  had  trading  proclivities,  and  in  exchange 
brought  me  old  and  valueless  trifles.  I  once  knew  a 
miner  in  Arizona  who  found  a  rich  gold-vein  through 
a  rat  bringing  him  a  piece  of  ore  in  exchange  for  a  bit 
of  bacon.  He  traced  the  rat  to  his  nest  and  discovered 
the  source  of  the  ore.  The  rats  had  their  ancient  ene- 
mies to  guard  against,  and  the  cats  of  Tahiti,  not  in- 
digenous, slept  by  day  and  hunted  by  night.  They 
cavorted  through  the  Annexe  in  the  smallest  hours,  and 
one  often  wakened  to  their  shrieks  and  squeals  of  com- 
bat. The  tom-cats  had  tails  longer  than  their  bodies, 
the  climate,  their  habits  and  food  developing  them  ex- 
traordinarily. 

The  roosters  grew  to  a  size  unequaled,  and  those  in 
the  garden  of  the  Annexe  roused  me  almost  at  dawn. 
Their  voices  were  horrific,  and  one  that  had  fathered 
a  quartet  of  ducks — an  angry  tourist  had  killed  the 
drake  because  of  his  quacking — was  a  vrai  Chantecler. 
When  he  waked  me,  the  sun  was  coming  over  the  hills 
from  Hitiaa,  brightened  Papenoo  and  leaped  the  sum- 
mits to  Papeete,  but  it  was  long  before  the  phantom  of 
false  morning  died  and  the  god  of  day  rode  his  golden 
chariot  to  the  sea.  The  Diadem  was  gilded  first,  and 
down  the  beach  the  long  light  tremulously  disclosed  the 
faint  scarlet  of  the  flamboyant-trees,  their  full,  magnifi- 
cent color  yet  to  be  revealed,  and  their  elegant  contours 
like  those  graceful,  red-tiled  pagodas  on  the  journey  to 
Canton  in  far  Cathay. 

Motu  Uta  crept  from  the  obscurity  of  the  night,  and 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  199 

the  battlements  of  Moorea  were  but  dim  silhouettes. 
The  lagoon  between  the  reef  and  the  beach  was  turning 
from  dark  blue  to  azure  pink.  The  miracle  of  the  ad- 
vent of  the  day  was  never  more  delicately  painted  be' 
fore  my  eyes. 

In  my  crimson  pareu  I  descended  the  grand  staircase, 
which  had  often  echoed  to  the  booted  tread  of  admiral 
and  sailor,  of  diplomat  and  bureaucrat,  and  outside  the 
building  I  passed  along  the  lower  rear  balcony  to  the 
bath.  The  Annexe,  like  the  Tiare  Hotel,  made  no  pre- 
tense to  elegance  or  convenience.  The  French  never 
demand  the  latter  at  home,  and  the  Tahitian  is  so  much 
an  outdoor  man  that  water-pipes  and  what  they  signify 
are  not  of  interest  to  him. 

The  bath  of  the  Annexe  was  a  large  cement  tank> 
primarily  for  washing  clothes.  Its  floor  was  as  slip- 
pery as  ice.  One  held  to  the  window-frame  at  the  side, 
and  turned  the  tap. 

A  shower  fell  a  dozen  feet  like  rose-leaves  upon  one. 
Ah,  the  waters  of  Tahiti!  Never  was  such  gentle,  vel- 
vety rain,  a  benediction  from  the  tauupo  o  te  moua,  the 
slopes  of  the  mountains. 

I  deferred  my  pleasure  a  few  minutes  as  the  place 
under  the  shower  was  occupied  by  an  entrancing  pair, 
Evoa,  the  consort  of  Afa,  and  her  four-months-old  in- 
fant, Poia.  Evoa  was  sixteen  years  old,  tall,  like  most 
Tahitians,  finely  figured,  slender,  and  with  the  superb 
carriage  that  is  the  despair  of  the  corseted  women  who 
visit  Tahiti.  Her  features  were  regular,  but  not  soft. 
Her  skin  was  ivory-white,  with  a  glint  of  red  in  cheek 
and  lip,  and  the  unconfined  hair  that  reached  her  hips 
was  intensely  black  and  fine.  I  could  see  no  touch 


200  MYSTIC  ISLES 

or  tint  of  the  Polynesian  except  in  the  slight  harshness 
of  the  contours  of  her  face,  and  that  her  legs  were  more 
like  yellow  satin  than  white.  Her  foot  would  have 
given  Du  Maurier  inspiration  for  a  brown  Trilby.  It 
was  long,  high-arched,  perfect;  the  toes,  never  having 
known  shoes,  natural  and  capable  of  grasp,  and  the 
ankle  delicate,  yet  strong.  Her  father  she  believed  to 
have  been  a  French  official  who  had  stayed  only  a  brief 
period  in  Bora-Bora,  her  mother's  island,  and  whose 
very  name  was  forgotten  by  her.  She  had  not  seen  her 
mother  since  her  first  year,  having,  as  is  the  custom  here. 
been  adopted  by  others. 

Poia  had  a  head  like  a  cocoanut,  her  eyes  shiny,  black 
buttons,  her  body  roly-poly,  and  her  pinkish-yellow 
feet  and  hands  adorable.  Evoa  was  dressing  her  for 
the  market  in  a  red  muslin  slip,  a  knitted  shawl  of  white 
edged  with  blue,  and,  shades  of  Fahrenheit!  a  cap  with 
pink  ribbons,  and  socks  of  orange.  Evoa  herself  would 
wear  a  simple  tunic,  which  was  most  of  the  time 
pulled  down  over  the  shoulder  to  give  Poia  ingress  to 
her  white  breast.  Poia  was  like  a  flower,  and  I  had 
never  heard  her  cry,  this  good  nature  being  accounted 
for  perhaps  by  an  absence  of  pins,  as  she  was 
usually  naked.  She  had  two  teeth  barely  peeping  from 
below. 

Evoa  spoke  only  Tahitian,  which  is  the  same  tongue 
as  that  spoken  in  Bora-Bora,  and  she  was  totally  with- 
out education.  Afa  had  found  her,  and  brought  her  to 
his  cabin  in  the  garden.  He  did  not  claim  to  be  the 
father  of  Poia,  but  was  delighted,  as  are  all  Polynesians, 
to  find  a  mate  and,  with  her,  certainty  of  a  little  one. 
They  have  not  our  selfishness  of  paternity,  but  find  in 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  201 

the  assumed  relation  of  father  all  the  pride  and  joy  we 
take  only  with  surety  of  our  relationship. 

Afa  was  a  handsome  half-caste,  his  mustache  and 
light  complexion,  his  insouciance  and  frivolity,  his  per- 
fect physique,  skill  with  canoe  and  fish-net  and  spear, 
his  flirtations  with  many  women,  and  his  ability  to  pro- 
vide amusement  for  the  guests,  making  him  a  superior 
type  of  the  white-brown  blood.  There  was  a  black 
tragedy  in  this  life  which,  with  all  his  heedlessness,  often 
and  again  imprisoned  him  in  deep  melancholy. 

His  father  was  a  wealthy  Italian  who  lived  near  the 
home  of  a  Tahitian  princess,  and  who  won  the  girl's 
love  against  her  father's  commands.  Afa  was  born, 
the  princess  was  sent  away,  and  the  child  brought  up  in 
a  good  family.  When  he  was  fourteen  years  old  he 
was  taken  to  the  United  States.  His  father  became  en- 
gaged in  a  quarrel  with  certain  natives  whom  he  forbade 
to  cross  his  land  to  gather  feis  in  the  mountains.  As 
they  had  always  had  this  right,  they  resented  his  imposi- 
tion, and  plotted  to  kill  him.  He  disappeared,  and  a 
long  time  afterward  his  body  was  found  loosely  covered 
with  earth,  the  feet  above  the  surface.  In  court  the 
surgeons  swore  that  he  had  been  alive  when  buried.  A 
number  of  men  were  tried  for  the  crime  and  sentenced 
to  life  imprisonment  in  New  Caledonia. 

Afa  returned  from  America  to  find  that  much  of  his 
father's  property  had  been  stolen  or  claimed  by  others, 
and  he  became  a  cook  and  servant.  He  had  been  many 
years  with  Lovaina,  and  though  he  owned  valuable 
land,  he  preferred  the  hotel  life,  half  domestic,  half 
manager  and  confidant,  to  the  quietude  of  the  country. 
In  Afa's  single  room  were  two  brass  bedsteads,  many 


202  MYSTIC  ISLES 

gaudy  tidies,  an  engraving  of  the  execution  of  Xathan 
Hale,  and  a  toilet-table  full  of  fancy  notions.  Evoa 
was  always  barefooted,  but  Afa,  on  steamer  days  and 
when  going  to  the  cinematograph,  appeared  in  immacu- 
late white  and  with  canvas  shoes.  Otherwise  he  wore 
only  a  fold  of  cloth  about  the  loins,  the  real  garment  of 
the  Tahitian,  and  the  right  one  for  that  climate. 

Again  on  my  balcony,  I  saw  the  sun  had  passed  the 
crown  of  the  Diadem  and  was  slanting  hotly  toward 
Papeete.  Moorea  was  emerging  from  darkness,  its  val- 
leys a  deep  brown,  and  the  tops  of  the  serried  moun- 
tains becoming  green. 

Along  the  reef,  outside,  a  schooner,  two-masted,  was 
making  for  the  harbor.  She  was  very  graceful,  and  as 
she  entered  the  lagoon  through  the  passage  in  the  bar- 
rier I  was  struck  by  her  lines,  slender,  swelling,  and 
feminine.  She  passed  within  a  few  hundred  feet  of  me, 
and  I  saw  that  she  was  the  Mar  am,  the  Flying -Fish. 

I  did  not  know  it  then,  but  I  was  to  go  on  that  little 
vessel  to  the  blazing  atolls  of  the  Dangerous  Archipel- 
ago, and  to  see  stranger  and  more  fascinating  sights 
than  I  had  dreamed  of  on  the  A7oa-AToa  during  my  pas- 
sage to  Tahiti. 

I  dragged  my  canoe  to  the  edge  of  the  qua!  des  Sub- 
sistances,  so-called  because  of  the  naval  depot.  The 
craft  was  dubbed  out  of  a  breadfruit-tree  trunk,  and 
had  an  outrigger  of  puraii  wood,  a  natural  crooked  arm, 
with  a  small  limb  laced  to  it.  The  canoe  was  steady 
enough  in  such  smooth  water,  and  I  paddled  off  to  Motu 
Uta.  That  islet  is  a  rock  of  coral  upon  which  soil  had 
been  placed  unknown  years  before,  and  which  produced 
fruits  and  flowers  in  abundance  under  the  hand  of  the 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  203 

caretaker.  Motu  Uta  is  about  as  large  as  a  city  build- 
ing lot,  and  the  coral  hummock  shelves  sharply  to  a 
considerable  depth.  Under  this  declining  reef  were 
the  rarest  shapes  and  colors  of  fish.  They  swam  up 
and  down,  and  in  and  out  of  their  blue  and  pink  and 
ivory-colored  homes,  slowly  and  majestically,  or  darting 
hither  and  thither,  angered  at  the  intrusion  of  my  canoe 
in  their  domain,  courting  and  rubbing  fins,  repelling  in- 
vaders. The  little  ones  avoiding  dexterously  the  appe- 
tites of  their  big  friends,  and  these  moving  pompously, 
but  warily,  seeking  what  they  might  devour. 

A  collector  of  corals  would  find  many  sorts  there. 
They  are  wonderful,  these  stony  plants,  graceful, 
strange,  bizarre.  The  Tahitian,  who  has  a  score  of 
names  for  the  winds,  and  who  classifies  fish  not  only  by 
their  names,  but  changes  these  names  according  to  size 
and  age,  makes  only  a  few  lumps  of  the  coral.  It  is 
to'a,  and  when  round  is  to  a  at'i,  to  a  apu;  when  branch- 
ing, unihij  uruana;  when  in  a  bank,  to'a  aau;  when  above 
the  surface  of  the  water,  to'a  raa.  A  submerged  mass 
is  to'a  faa  rum,  and  the  coral  on  which  the  waves  break, 
to'a  auau.  However,  the  native  knows  well  that  one 
species  of  coral,  the  ahifa,  is  corrosive,  irritating  the 
skin  when  touched,  and  another,  which  is  poisoned  by 
the  hara  plants,  is  termed  to'a  harahia. 

Coral  makes  good  lime  for  whitening  walls,  and  is 
cut  into  blocks  for  building.  Many  churches  in  Tahiti 
were  built  of  coral  blocks.  The  puny  fortifications 
erected  by  the  French  in  the  war  with  the  Tahitians 
decades  ago  were  of  coral  stones,  and  are  now  black  with 
age  and  weather. 

I  headed  my  canoe  toward  the  barrier  reef,  and  tied 


204  MYSTIC  ISLES 

it  to  a  knob  of  coral.  Then  I  stepped  out  upon  the 
reef  itself,  my  tennis  shoes  keeping  the  sharp  edges 
from  cutting  my  feet.  It  was  the  low  tide  succeeding 
sunrise,  and  the  water  over  the  reef  was  a  few  inches 
deep,  so  that  I  could  see  the  marine  life  of  the  wall,  the 
many  kinds  of  starfish,  the  sea-urchins,  and  the  curious 
bivalves  which  hide  with  their  shell-tips  just  even  with 
the  floor  of  the  lagoon,  and,  keeping  them  barely  even, 
wait  for  foolish  prey. 

The  floor  of  the  lagoon  was  most  interesting;  the 
prodigality  of  nature  in  the  countless  number  of  low 
forms  of  life,  their  great  variety,  their  beauty,  and  their 
ugliness,  and,  appealing  to  me  especially,  the  humor  of 
nature  in  the  tricks  she  played  with  color  and  shape, 
her  score  of  clowns  of  the  sea  equaling  her  funny  fel- 
lows ashore,  the  macaws,  the  mandrills,  the  dachshunds, 
and  the  burros. 

The  sunlight  on  the  water  at  that  hour  was  like  silver 
spangles  on  a  sapphire  robe.  I  paddled  near  to  the 
Marara,  and  watched  her  let  go  her  anchor  and  send  her 
boat  ashore  with  a  stern  line.  Fastened  to  a  cannon 
and  passed  around  a  bitt  on  the  schooner,  the  crew 
hauled  her  close  to  the  embankment,  and  soon  she  was 
broadside  to,  and  her  gangway  on  the  quay.  Her  cap- 
tain, M.  Moet,  Woronick,  a  pearl  merchant,  a  govern- 
ment physician,  and  the  passengers  from  the  Paumotus 
were  soon  ashore  shaking  hands  with  friends.  I  walked 
behind  them  to  Lovaina's  for  coffee,  and  was  introduced 
to  them  all. 

Woronick  took  me  to  his  house  across  the  street  from 
the  Tiare  Hotel,  and  there  opened  a  massive  safe  and 
showed  me  drawer  after  drawer  of  pearls.  They  were 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  205 

of  all  sizes  and  shapes  and  tints,  from  a  pear-shaped, 
brilliant,  Orient  pearl  of  great  value,  to  the  golden  pipi 
of  inconsiderable  worth.  Woronick  spoke  of  a  pearl 
he  had  bought  some  years  ago  in  Takaroa,  the  creation 
of  which,  he  said,  had  cost  the  lives  of  three  men  includ- 
ing a  great  savant. 

"If  you  go  to  Takaroa,"  said  Woronick,  "be  sure  to 
see  old  Tepeva  a  Tepeva.  He  used  to  be  one  of  the 
best  divers  in  the  Low  Islands,  but  he  's  got  the  bends. 
He  sold  me  the  greatest  pearl  ever  found  in  these  fish- 
eries in  the  last  twenty  years,  and  I  made  enough  profit 
on  it  to  buy  a  house  in  Paris  and  live  a  year.  Get  him 
to  tell  you  his  yarn.  It  beats  Monte  Cristo  all  hollow." 

Which  I  made  a  note  to  do. 

In  the  afternoon,  with  Charlie  Eager,  a  guest  at  the 
Annexe,  I  went  to  the  worship-place  of  the  Chinese,  on 
the  Broom  Road.  Outwardly,  it  had  not  the  flaunting 
distinction  of  the  joss-houses  of  the  Far  East  or  those 
of  New  York  or  San  Francisco.  The  Chinese  usually 
builds  his  temples  even  in  foreign  lands  in  the  same 
Oriental  superfluity  of  color  and  curve  and  adornment 
that  makes  them  exclusively  the  Middle  Kingdom's  own; 
but  here  he  had  been  content  to  have  a  simple,  white- 
washed church  which  might  be  a  meeting-house  or 
school.  It  was  set  in  the  center  of  a  great  garden  in 
which  mango  and  cocoa  and  breadfruit  abounded.  We 
were  struck  by  the  superb  breadth  and  immense  height 
of  a  breadfruit-tree  the  shadows  of  which  fell  over  a 
small  brick  pagoda.  This  tree  was  a  hundred  feet  tall, 
and  the  always  glorious  leaves,  as  large  as  aprons,  in- 
dented and  a  glossy,  dark  green,  made  it  a  temple  in 
itself  worthier  of  the  ministrations  of  priests  than  the 


206  MYSTIC  ISLES 

ugly  brick  or  frame  structure  of  our  cities.  The  Druids 
in  their  groves  were  nearer  to  the  real  God  than  the 
pursy  bishop  in  the  steam-heated  cathedral. 

A  native  woman,  aged  and  bent,  said  "la  ora  na!"  to 
us,  and  we  replied.  With  my  few  words  of  Tahitian 
I  gained  from  her  that  the  joss-house  was  open.  We 
entered  it,  and  found  no  one  there.  The  center  was 
wide  to  the  sky,  that  the  rain  might  fall  and  the  stars 
shine  within  it.  The  altars  were  brilliant  with  memorial 
tablets,  the  green,  red,  and  gold  flower  vases,  and  san- 
dalwood  taper-holders,  so  familiar  to  me,  and  all  about 
were  the  written  prayers  of  devotees,  soliciting  the 
favor  of  Heaven,  asking  success  in  business,  or  the 
averting  of  illness.  They  were  evidently  painted  by 
the  bonze  of  the  fane,  for  his  slab  of  India  ink  was  on 
a  table  nearby,  as  also  the  brushes  for  the  ideographs. 

Sons  expressed  their  filial  duties  in  glittering  excerpts 
from  Confucius,  carved  and  gilded  on  expansive  boards, 
and  the  incense  of  the  poor  arose  from  the  humble  punk- 
sticks  stuck  in  dishes  of  sand  upon  the  floor. 

No  Levite  sat  within  the  shrine  or  watched  to  see  if 
profane  hand  touched  the  sacred  symbols,  and  were 
Charlie  Eager  sure  of  that  before  we  left,  he  had  se- 
cured a  trophy.  Not  knowing  but  that  from  one  of  the 
numerous  crannies  or  mayhap  from  the  open  roof  the 
wrathful  eye  of  a  hierophant  was  upon  him,  he  had  ta 
content  himself  with  a  prayer  from  the  pagoda,  which 
proved  on  close  inspection  to  be  a  furnace  for  the  burn- 
ing of  the  paper  slips  on  which  the  aspirations  of  the 
faithful  were  written.  Whether  the  prayers  had  been 
granted,  were  out  of  date,  or  the  time  paid  for  hanging  in 
the  joss-house  had  expired,  the  crematory  was  four  feet 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  207 

deep  with  the  red  and  white  rice-paper  legends,  await- 
ing an  auspicious  occasion  for  incineration.  Eager  of 
Inglewood,  California,  fished  secretly,  hidden  by  my 
body,  until  he  found  a  particularly  long  and  intricate 
set  of  hieroglyphics,  and  deposited  it  in  his  pocket. 
Then  we  fled. 

More  than  two  thousand  Chinese  in  Tahiti,  nearly  all 
kin  within  a  few  degrees,  found  in  this  humble  church 
a  substitute  for  their  family  temples  in  China,  where 
usually  each  clan  has  its  own  place  of  worship.  The 
laboring  class  of  this  fecund  people  seldom  extend  their 
real  devotion  beyond  their  ancestors  and  the  principle 
of  fatherhood,  their  reasoning  being  that  of  the  wise 
Jewish  charge  to  honor  one's  father  (and  mother)  that 
one's  life  may  be  long.  Loving  sons  take  care  of  old 
parents.  It  is  the  old  Oriental  patriarchy  sublimated 
by  the  imposition  of  commerce  upon  agriculture. 

The  Chinese  came  to  Tahiti  during  the  American 
Civil  War.  They  were  brought  by  an  English  planter 
to  grow  cotton,  then  scarce  on  account  of  the  blockade 
and  desolation  of  the  South.  With  the  end  of  the  war, 
and  the  looms  of  Manchester  again  supplied,  the  plan- 
tation languished,  and  the  Chinese  took  other  employ- 
ment, became  planters  themselves,  or  set  up  little  shops. 
They  now  had  most  of  the  retail  business  of  the  island, 
and  all  of  it  outside  Papeete. 

The  secretary-general  gave  me  figures  about  them. 

"There  are  twenty-two  hundred  Chinese  in  Tahiti 
now,"  said  he.  "We  are  willing  to  receive  all  who  come. 
They  are  needed  to  restore  the  population.  Who  would 
keep  the  stores  or  grow  vegetables  if  we  did  not  have 
the  Chinese?  We  exact  no  entrance  fee,  but  we  num- 


208  MYSTIC  ISLES 

ber  every  man,  and  photograph  him,  to  keep  a  record. 
There  is  no  government  agent  in  China  to  further  this 
emigration,  but  those  here  write  home,  and  induce  their 
relatives  to  come.  We  hope  for  enough  to  make  labor 
plentiful.  All  cannot  keep  stores." 

"Have  you  no  Japanese?" 

"Only  those  who  work  for  the  phosphate  company  at 
the  island  of  Makatea,"  replied  the  secretary-general. 
"They  are  well  paid,  their  fare  to  Tahiti  and  return  se- 
cured, and  otherwise  they  are  favored.  The  Govern- 
ment has  agreed  with  a  company  to  promote  Chinese 
emigration  to  the  Marquesas.  There  are  thousands 
needed.  In  French  Oceanic  there  are  twelve  thousand 
possible  workers  for  nearly  a  million  acres  of  land. 
This  land  could  easily  feed  two  hundred  thousand  peo- 
ple. The  natives  are  dying  fast,  and  we  must  replace 
them,  or  the  land  will  become  jungle." 

"Could  n't  you  bring  French  Chinese  from  Indo- 
China?"  I  asked. 

"We  have  n't  any  workers  to  spare  there,"  he  an- 
swered. 

In  Papeete  the  Chinese  were,  as  in  America,  a  mys- 
terious, elusive  race,  the  immigrants  remaining  homo- 
geneous in  habits,  closely  united  in  social  and  business 
activities,  and  with  a  solid  front  to  the  natives  and  the 
whites.  They  lived  much  as  in  China,  though  in  more 
healthful  surroundings.  Every  vice  they  had  in  China 
they  brought  to  Tahiti;  their  virtues  they  left  behind, 
except  those  strict  ethics  in  commerce  and  finance  which 
must  be  carried  out  successfully  to  "save  face."  Their 
community  in  this  island,  with  a  climate  and  people  as 
different  from  their  own  as  the  land  from  the  sea,  was 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  209 

in  their  thoughts  a  part  of  Canton  and  the  farms  of 
Quan-tung.  All  the  bareness,  dirt,  and  squalid  atmos- 
phere of  home  they  had  sought  to  bring  to  the  South 
Seas.  They  saw  the  other  nationals  here  as  objects  of 
ridicule  and  spoilage.  The  amassing  of  a  competence 
before  old  age  or  against  a  return  to  China,  and  the 
marrying  there,  or  the  resumption  of  marital  relations 
with  the  wife  he  had  left  to  make  his  fortune,  was  the 
fiercely  sought  goal  of  each. 

Loti  wrote  nearly  fifty  years  ago,  a  decade  after  their 
influx: 

"The  Chinese  merchants  of  Papeete  were  objects  of  disgust 
and  horror  to  the  natives.  There  was  no  greater  shame  than 
for  a  young  woman  to  be  convicted  of  listening  to  the  gallan- 
tries of  one  of  them.  But  the  Chinese  were  wicked  and  rich, 
and  it  was  notorious  that  several  of  them,  by  means  of  presents 
and  money,  had  obtained  clandestine  favors  which  made  amends 
to  them  for  public  scorn." 

Had  Admiral  Julien  Viaud  returned  now  to  Tahiti, 
he  would  have  found  the  Chinese  stores  thronged  by  the 
handsomest  girls,  their  restaurants  thriving  on  their 
charms,  and  the  Chinese  the  possessors  of  the  pick  of 
the  lower  and  middle  classes  of  young  women.  Ah  Sin 
is  persistent ;  he  has  no  sense  of  Christian  shame,  and  as 
in  the  Philippines,  he  dresses  his  women  gaily,  and  wins 
their  favors  despite  his  evil  reputation,  his  ugliness,  and 
his  being  despised. 

At  the  Cercle  Bougainville  I  saw  more  than  one 
Chinese  playing  cards  and  drinking.  These  were 
Chinese  who  had  made  money,  and  who  in  the  give  and 
take  of  business  have  pushed  themselves  into  the  club 
of  the  other  merchants,  who  feared  and  watched  them. 


210  MYSTIC  ISLES 

Women  were  not  allowed  in  barrooms  in  Papeete. 
The  result  was  that  they  went  to  the  Chinese  restaurants 
and  coffee-houses  to  drink  beer  and  wine  at  tables,  as 
legalized.  A  concomitant  of  this  was  that  men  went  to 
these  places  to  meet  women,  and  further  that  women 
were  retained  or  persuaded  by  the  Chinese  to  frequent 
their  places  so  as  to  stimulate  the  sale  of  intoxicants. 
The  Chinese  restaurants  naturally  became  assignation 
houses. 

Walking  back,  late  in  the  afternoon,  from  the  joss- 
house,  we  met  Lovaina  in  her  automobile,  with  the 
American  negro  chauffeur,  William,  and  Temanu, 
Atupu,  and  Iromea.  She  invited  me  to  accompany 
them  to  swim  in  the  Papenoo  River,  a  few  miles  towards 
Point  Venus.  Other  guests  of  the  Tiare  Hotel  came  in 
hired  cars,  and  twenty  or  thirty  joined  in  the  bath.  The 
river  was  a  small  flood,  rains  having  swelled  it  so  that 
a  current  of  five  or  six  knots  swept  one  off  one's  feet  and 
down  a  hundred  and  fifty  feet  before  one  could  seize  the 
limb  of  an  overhanging  tree.  We  undressed  in  the 
bushes,  and  the  men  wore  only  pareus,  while  the  girls 
had  an  extra  gown.  They  were  expert  swimmers, 
climbing  into  the  tops  of  the  trees,  and  hurling  them- 
selves with  screams  into  the  water.  They  struck  it  in  a 
sitting  posture  making  great  splashes  and  reverbera- 
tions. Their  muslin  slips  outlined  their  strong  bodies, 
so  that  they  were  like  veiled  goddesses,  their  brown- 
black  hair  floating  free,  as  they  leaped  or  fought  and 
tumbled  with  the  tide.  We  stayed  an  hour  at  this  sport, 
joined  when  school  was  dismissed  by  all  the  youth  of 
Papenoo.  Under  twelve  they  bathed  naked,  but  those 
older  wore  pareus. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  211 

It  was  hard  to  keep  on  a  pareu  in  a  swift-running 
stream  unless  one  knew  how  to  tie  it.  I  lost  mine  sev- 
eral times,  and  had  to  grope  shamefacedly  in  the  race 
for  it,  until  finally  Lovaina  made  the  proper  knots  and 
turned  it  into  a  diaper. 

"I  not  go  swim  now,"  she  said  regretfully,  "  'cep* 
some  night-time.  Too  big.  Before  I  marry,  eighteen 
seven'y-nine,  and  before  my  three  children  grow  up,  I 
swim  plenty  then." 

"Lovaina,"  I  said,  "it  was  hardly  eighteen  seventy- 
nine  you  were  married.  You  are  only  forty-three  now. 
Was  it  not  eighty-nine?" 

"Mus'  be,"  she  replied  thoughtfully.  "I  nineteen 
when  marry.  My  father  give  me  that  house,  now  Tiare 
Hotel,  for  weddin'  present.  All  furnish.  You  should 
see  that  marry!  My  God!  there  was  bottle  in  yard  all 
broken.  Admiral  French  fleet  send  band;  come  hisself 
with  all  his  officer'.  Five  o'clock  mornin'-time  still 
dance  and  drink.  Bigges'  time  T'ytee.  You  not  walk 
barefoot  long  time  'count  broken  glass  everywhere." 

I  had  heard  that  delicious  incident  before,  but  it  never 
lost  savor. 

After  dinner  and  a  prolonged  session  upon  the  cam- 
phor-wood chest  to  hear  Lovaina's  chatter,  I  came 
leisurely  to  the  Annexe  along  the  shore  of  the  lagoon. 
It  was  after  midnight,  and  the  heavens  sang  with  stars 
as  the  ripe  moon  dipped  into  the  western  sea. 

The  tropics  only  know  the  fullness  of  the  firmament, 
the  myriad  of  suns  and  planets,  the  brilliancy  of  the 
constellations,  and  the  overpowering  revelation  of  the 
infinite  above.  In  less  fervent  latitudes  one  can  never 
feel  the  bigness  of  the  vault  on  high,  nor  sense  the  in- 


212  MYSTIC  ISLES 

timacy  one  had  here  with  the  worlds  that  spin  in  the 
measureless  ether. 

Two  lofty-sparred  ships  but  newly  from  the  Cali- 
fornia coast  swung  at  moorings  within  a  dozen  feet  of 
the  grass  that  borders  the  coral  banks,  and  on  their 
decks,  under  the  light  of  lamps,  American  sailors  lifted 
a  shanty  of  the  rolling  Mississippi.  I  remembered 
when  I  had  first  heard  it.  I  was  a  boy,  and  had  stolen 
away  on  a  bark,  the  Julia  Rollins,  bound  for  Rio,  and 
as  we  hauled  in  the  line  let  go  by  the  tow-boat,  a  seaman 
raised  the  bowline  song.  To  me,  with  "Two  Years  Be- 
fore the  Mast"  and  Clark  Russell's  galley  yarns  churn- 
ing in  my  mind,  it  was  sweeter  far  than  ever  siren  voiced 
to  lure  her  victims  to  their  death,  and  rough  and  tarry 
as  was  the  shanty-man,  Caruso  had  never  seemed  to  me 
such  a  glorious  figure. 

This  fascination  of  the  sea  and  of  its  border  had  never 
left  me,  though  I  had  passed  years  on  ships  and  nearly 
all  my  life  within  sound  of  the  surf.  It  is  as  strong  as 
ever,  holding  me  thrall  in  the  sight  of  its  waters  and 
its  freights,  and  unhappy  when  denied  them.  Best  of 
all  literature  I  love  the  stories  of  old  ocean,  and  glad 
am  I 

That  such  as  have  no  pleasure 

For  to  praise  the  Lord  by  measure, 

They  may  enter  into  galleons  and  serve  him  on  the  sea. 

In  Tahiti  the  sea  was  very  near  and  meant  much. 
One  felt  toward  it  as  must  the  mountaineer  who  lives 
in  the  shadow  of  the  Matterhorn ;  it  was  always  part  of 
one's  thoughts,  for  all  men  and  things  came  and  went 
by  it,  and  the  great  world  lay  beyond  it. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  213 

But  dear  or  near  as  the  sea  might  be  to  such  a  man 
as  I,  a  mere  traveler  upon  it  to  reach  a  goal,  to  the  Ta- 
hitian  it  was  life  and  road  and  romance,  too.  Leg- 
ends of  it  filled  the  memories  of  those  old  ones  who, 
though  in  tattered  form,  preserved  yet  awhile  the  deeds 
of  daring  of  their  fathers  and  the  terrors  of  storm  and 
sea  monster,  of  long  journeys  in  frail  canoes,  of  dis- 
coveries and  conquerings,  of  brides  taken  from  other 
peoples,  and  of  the  gods  and  devils  who  were  in  turn 
masters  of  the  deep. 

Once  a  Tahitian  stopped  the  sun  as  it  sank  beyond 
Moorea  not  to  wage  war,  as  Joshua,  but  to  please  his  old 
mother.  The  sea  and  the  heavens  are  brothers  to  the 
Tahitian.  The  sky  had  two  great  tales  for  him — guid- 
ance for  his  craft  and  prophecies  for  his  soul ;  but  he  did 
not  inhabit  it  with  his  gods  or  his  dead,  as  do  Christians 
and  other  religionists,  for  the  mountains,  the  valleys, 
and  the  caves  were  the  abiding-places  of  spirits,  and  the 
Tahitian  had  named  only  those  stars  which  blazed  forth 
most  vividly  or  served  him  as  compass  on  the  sea.  He 
did,  however,  mark  the  various  phases  of  the  sky,  and 
in  his  musical  tongue  named  them  with  particularity. 

The  firmament  is  te  ao,  te  rai,  and  the  atmosphere 
te  reva,  and  when  peaceful,  raiatea.  This  is  the  name 
of  one  of  the  most  beautiful  islands  of  this  Society 
group,  "Raiatea  la  Sacree,"  it  is  called,  "Raiatea  the 
Blessed,"  and  its  own  serenity  is  betokened  in  its  name. 

E  hau  maru,  e  maru  to  oe  rai 
E  topara,  te  Mahana 
I  Ra'  i-atea  nei! 

So  ran  the  rhyme  of  Raiatea : 


214  MYSTIC  ISLES 

Full  of  a  sweet  peace,  serene  thy  sky; 
Bright  are  all  thy  days 
At  Raiatea  here. 

Rai  poia  or  pom,  they  say  for  the  gloomy  heavens, 
and  rat  maemae  when  threatening,  parutu  when  cloudy, 
moere  if  clear ;  if  the  clouds  presage  wind,  tut cd  vi.  The 
sunset  is  tooa  o  te  ra,  and  the  twilight  marumarupo. 

The  night  is  te  po  or  te  rui,  and  the  moment  before  the 
sun  rises  marumaru  ao.  A  hundred  other  words  and 
phrases  differentiate  the  conditions  of  sky  and  air.  I 
learned  them  from  Afa  and  Evoa  and  others. 

The  moon  is  te  marama,  and  the  full  moon  vaevae* 
Mars  is  fetia  ura,  the  red  star ;  the  Pleiades  are  Matarii, 
the  little  eyes;  and  the  Southern  Cross,  Taulia.  Fetia 
ave  are  the  comets,  the  "stars  with  a  tail,"  and  the  me* 
teors  paoj  opurei,  patau,  and  pitau. 

The  moon  was  gone,  but  the  stars  needed  no  help,  for 
they  shone  as  if  the  trump  of  doom  were  due  at  dawn, 
and  they  should  be  no  more.  Blue  and  gold,  a  cathe- 
dral ceiling  with  sanctuary  lamps  hung  high,  the  dome 
of  earth  sparkled  and  glittered,  and  on  the  schooners 
by  the  Cercle  Bougainville  himenes  of  joy  rang  out  on 
the  soft  air. 

I  passed  them  close,  so  close  that  a  girl  of  Huahine 
who  was  dancing  on  the  deck  of  the  Mihimana  seized  me 
by  the  arm  and  embraced  me. 

"Come  back,  stranger!"  she  cried  in  Tahitian. 
"There  is  pleasure  here,  and  the  night  is  but  just  be- 
gun." 

A  dozen  island  schooners  swayed  in  the  gentle  breeze, 
their  stays  humming  softly,  their  broadsides  sepa- 
rated from  the  quays  by  just  a  dozen  or  twenty 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  215 

feet,  as  if  they  feared  to  risk  the  seduction  of  the 
land,  and  felt  themselves  safer  parted  from  the  shore. 
On  all  the  street-level  verandas,  the  entrances  to  the 
shops  and  the  restaurants,  the  hundreds  of  natives  who 
had  not  wanted  other  lodging  slept  as  children  in 
cradles  until  they  should  rise  for  coffee  before  the 
market-bell. 

From  the  Chinese  shop  at  the  corner  the  strains  of  a 
Canton  actor's  falsetto,  with  the  squeak  of  the  Celestial 
fiddles  issued  from  a  phonograph,  but  so  real  I  fancied 
I  was  again  on  Shameen,  listening  over  the  Canton 
River  to  the  noises  of  the  night,  the  music,  and  the  sing- 
song girls  of  the  silver  combs. 

I  went  on,  and  met  the  peanut-man.  He  sold  me  two 
small  bags  of  roasted  goobers  for  eight  sous.  He  wore 
the  brown,  oilskin-like,  two-piece  suit  of  the  Chinese  of 
southern  China,  and  he  had  no  teeth  and  no  hair,  and 
his  eyes  would  not  stay  open.  He  had  to  open  them 
with  his  fingers,  so  that  most  of  the  time  he  was  blind; 
but  he  counted  money  accurately,  and  he  had  a  tidy 
bag  of  silver  and  coppers  strapped  to  his  stomach.  He 
looked  a  hundred  years  old. 

When  I  paid  for  the  two  bags,  he  raised  his  lids,  be- 
lieved that  I  was  a  speaker  of  English,  and  said,  "Fine 
businee!" 

As  I  went  past  the  queen's  palace,  the  two  malms 
were  chanting  low,  as  they  sat  on  the  curbing,  and  they 
glanced  coquettishly  at  me,  but  asked  only  for  ciga- 
rettes. I  gave  them  a  package  of  Marinas,  made  in 
the  Faubourg  Bab-el-oued,  in  Algiers,  and  they  said 
"Maruru"  and  "Merci"  in  turn  and  in  unison.  Strange 
men  these,  one  bearded  and  handsome,  the  other  slender 


216  MYSTIC  ISLES 

and  in  his  twenties,  their  dual  natures  contrasting  in 
their  broad  shoulders  and  their  swaying  hips,  their  men's 
parent  and  shirts,  and  bits  of  lace  lingerie.  I  met  them 
half  a  dozen  times  a  day,  and  as  I  was  now  known  as  a 
resident,  not  the  idler  of  a  month,  they  bowed  in  hope 
of  recognition. 

In  the  Annexe  all  was  quiet,  but  in  the  great  sailing 
canoe  of  Af  a,  on  the  grass  by  the  water,  there  were  two 
girls  smoking  and  humming,  and  waiting  for  the  cow- 
boy and  the  prize-fighter  who  lived  beside  me,  and  who 
were  dancing  to-night  at  Fa'a.  Like  Indians,  these 
Tahitians,  especially  the  women,  would  sit  and  watch 
and  wait  for  hours  on  hours,  and  make  no  complaint, 
if  only  their  dear  one — dear  mayhap  for  only  a  night — 
came  at  last. 

I  was  awakened  from  happy  sleep  by  the  cries  of  a 
frightened  woman,  confused  with  outlandish,  savage 
sounds.  I  lit  my  lamp  and  leaned  over  the  balcony. 
Under  a  flamboyant-tree  was  a  girl  defending  herself 
from  the  attack  of  Vava.  She  was  screaming  in  ter- 
ror, and  the  Dummy,  a  giant  in  strength,  was  holding 
her  and  grunting  his  bestial  laugh.  I  threw  the  rays 
full  in  his  face,  and  he  looked  up,  saw  me,  and  ran  away 
up  the  beach,  yelping  like  a  frustrated  beast.  In  voice 
and  action  he  resembled  an  animal  more  than  any  hu- 
man I  had  ever  seen.  The  guilelessness  and  cunning  of 
child  and  fiend  were  in  his  dumb  soul. 


CHAPTER  XII 

The  princess  suggests  a  walk  to  the  falls  of  Fautaua,  where  Loti  went 
with  Rarahu — We  start  in  the  morning — The  suburbs  of  Papeete — The 
Pool  of  Loti — The  birds,  trees  and  plants — A  swim  in  a  pool — Arrival 
at  the  cascade — Luncheon  and  a  siesta — We  climb  the  height — The 
princess  tells  of  Tahitian  women — The  Fashoda  fright. 

THE  falls  of  Fautaua,  famed  in  Tahitian  legend, 
are  exquisite  in  beauty  and  surrounding,  and  so 
near  Papeete  that  I  walked  to  them  and  back  in 
a  day.  Yet  hardly  any  one  goes  there.  For  those  who 
have  visited  them  they  remain  a  shrine  of  loveliness, 
wondrous  in  form  and  unsurpassed  in  color.  Before 
the  genius  of  Tahiti  was  smothered  in  the  black  and 
white  of  modernism,  the  falls  and  the  valley  in  which 
they  are,  were  the  haunt  of  lovers  who  sought  seclusion 
for  their  pledgings. 

A  princess  accompanied  me  to  them.  She  was  not  a 
daughter  of  a  king  or  queen,  but  she  was  near  to  royalty, 
and  herself  as  aristocratic  in  carriage  and  manner  as 
was  Oberea,  who  loved  Captain  Cook.  I  danced  with 
her  at  a  dinner  given  by  a  consul,  and  when  I  spoke  to 
her  of  Loti's  visit  to  Fautaua  with  Rarahu,  she  said  in 
French : 

"Why  do  you  not  go  there  yourself  with  a  Rarahu! 
Loti  is  old  and  an  admiral,  and  writes  now  of  Egypt 
and  Turkey  and  places  soiled  by  crowds  of  people,  but 
Rarahu  is  still  here  and  young.  Shall  I  find  you  her?'* 

I  looked  at  her  and  boldly  said : 

217 


218  MYSTIC  ISLES 

"I  am  a  stranger  in  your  island,  as  was  Loti  when 
he  met  Rarahu.  Will  you  not  yourself  show  me 
Fautaua?" 

She  gave  a  shrill  cry  of  delight,  and  in  the  frank, 
sweet  way  of  the  Tahitian  girl  replied : 

"We  will  run  away  to-morrow  morning.  Wear 
little,  for  it  will  be  warm,  and  bring  no  food !" 

"I  will  obey  you  literally,"  I  said,  "and  you  must  find 
manna  or  charm  ravens  to  bring  us  sustenance." 

I  had  coffee  opposite  the  market  place  in  the  shop  of 
Wing  Luey,  and  chatted  a  few  moments  with  Prince 
Hinoe,  the  son  of  the  Princesse  de  Joinville,  who  would 
have  been  king  had  the  French  not  ended  the  Kingdom 
of  Tahiti.  No  matter  what  time  Hinoe  lay  down  at 
night,  he  was  up  at  dawn  for  the  market,  for  his  early 
roll  and  coffee  and  his  converse  with  the  sellers  and  the 
buyers.  There  once  a  day  for  an  hour  the  native  in 
Papeete  touched  the  country  folk  and  renewed  the 
ancient  custom  of  gossip  in  the  cool  of  the  morning. 

The  princess — in  English  her  familiar  Tahitian  name, 
Noanoa  Tiare,  meant  Fragrance  of  the  Jasmine — was 
in  the  Pare  de  Bougainville,  by  the  bust  of  the  first 
French  circumnavigator. 

"la  or  a  na!"  she  greeted  me.  "Are  you  ready  for 
adventure  ?" 

She  handed  me  a  small,  soft  package,  with  a  caution 
to  keep  it  safe  and  dry.  I  put  it  in  my  inside  pocket. 

The  light  of  the  sun  hardly  touched  the  lagoon,  and 
Moorea  was  still  shrouded  in  the  shadows  of  the  expir- 
ing night.  As  we  walked  down  the  beach,  the  day  was 
opening  with  the  "morning  bank,"  the  masses  of  white 
clouds  that  gather  upon  the  horizon  before  the  trade- 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  219 

wind  begins  its  diurnal  sweep,  to  shift  and  mold  them  all 
the  hours  till  sunset. 

Fragrance  of  the  Jasmine  was  in  a  long  and  clinging 
tunic  of  pale  blue,  with  low,  white  shoes  disclosing 
stockings  also  of  blue,  and  wore  a  hat  of  pandanus 
weave.  She  carried  nothing,  nor  had  I  anything  in  my 
hands,  and  we  were  to  be  gone  all  day.  I  regretted  that 
I  had  not  lingered  longer  with  Prince  Hinoe  over  the 
rolls  and  coffee. 

We  fared  past  the  merchants'  stores,  the  Cercle  Bou- 
gainville, and  the  steamship  wharf,  and  over  the  Pont 
de  1'Est,  or  Eastern  bridge,  to  Patutoa.  The  princess 
pointed  out  to  me  many  wretched  straw  houses,  crowded 
in  a  hopeless  way.  They  were  like  a  refugee  camp 
after  a  disaster,  impermanent,  uncomfortable,  barely 
holding  on  to  the  swampy  earth.  One  knew  the  occu- 
pants to  be  far  from  their  own  Lares  and  Penates. 

"Those  are  the  habitations  of  people  of  other  islands," 
she  said.  "The  people  of  the  Paumotus,  the  Australs, 
and  of  Easter  Island  settled  there.  They  were  brought 
here  by  odious  labor  contractors,  and  died  of  homesick- 
ness. Those  men  murdered  hundreds  of  them  to  gain 
un  pen  d'argent,  a  handful  of  gold.  Eh  b'cn,  those 
who  did  it  have  suffered.  They  have  faded  away,  and 
most  of  their  evil  money,  too.  Aue!" 

Llewellyn's  dark  face  as  he  protested  against  Lying 
Bill's  sarcastic  statement  of  guilt  came  before  me. 

To  lighten  the  thought  of  the  princess  I  told  her  the 
thread  of  "The  Bottle  Imp,"  and  that  the  magic  bottle 
had  disappeared  out  of  the  story  right  there,  by  the  old 
calaboose.  She  was  glad  that  the  white  sailor  who  did 
not  care  for  life  had  saved  the  Hawaiians. 


220  MYSTIC  ISLES 

Framed  in  the  door  of  a  rough  cabin  I  saw  McHenry. 
He  was  in  pajamas,  barefooted,  and  unshaven.  I  re- 
called that  he  had  an  "old  woman"  there.  Llewellyn 
had  reproved  him  for  speaking  contemptuously  of  her 
as  beneath  him  socially.  I  waved  to  McHenry,  who 
nodded  charily,  and  pulled  down  the  curtain  which  was 
in  lieu  of  a  door.  The  shack  looked  bare  and  cheap,  as 
if  little  money  or  effort  had  been  spent  upon  it.  Per- 
haps, I  thought,  McHenry  could  afford  only  the  drinks 
and  cards  at  the  Cercle  Bougainville  and  economized  at 
home.  He  did  not  reappear,  but  a  comely  native 
woman  drew  back  the  curtain,  and  stood  a  moment  to 
view  us.  She  was  large,  and  did  not  look  browbeaten, 
as  one  would  have  supposed  from  McHenry 's  boast 
that  he  would  not  permit  her  even  to  walk  with  him 
except  at  a  "respectful  distance."  Of  course  I  knew 
him  as  a  boaster. 

The  church  of  the  curious  Josephite  religion  was 
near  by,  and  in  the  mission  house  attached  to  it  I  saw 
the  American  preachers  of  the  sect. 

"What  do  they  preach?"  I  asked  Xoanoa  Tiare. 

"Those  missionaries,  the  Tonito?  Oh,  they  speak 
evil  of  the  Mormons.  I  do  not  know  how  they  speak  of 
God."  She  laughed.  "I  am  not  interested  in  relig- 
ions," she  explained.  "They  are  so  difficult  to  under- 
stand. Our  own  old  gods  seem  easier  to  know  about." 

We  had  arrived  at  the  part  of  the  beach  into  which 
the  broad  avenue  of  Fautaua  debouched. 

The  road  was  beside  the  stream  of  Fautaua,  and  arch- 
ing it  were  magnificent  dark-green  trees,  like  the  locust- 
trees  of  Malta.  This  avenue  was  in  the  middle  of  the 
island,  and  looking  through  the  climbing  bow  of 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  221 

branches  I  saw  Maiauo,  the  lofty  needles  of  rock  which 
rise  black-green  from  the  mountain  plateau  and  form  a 
tiara,  Le  Diademe,  of  the  French.  A  quarter  of  an 
hour's  stroll  brought  us  to  a  natural  basin  into  which  the 
stream  fell.  It  was  of  it  Louis  Marie  Julien  Viaud, 
shortly  after  he  had  been  christened  Loti,  wrote : 

The  pool  had  numerous  visitors  every  day ;  beautiful  young 
women  of  Papeete  spent  the  warm  tropical  days  here,  chatting, 
singing  and  sleeping,  or  even  diving  and  swimming  like  agile  gold 
fish.  They  went  here  clad  in  their  muslin  tunics,  and  wore 
them  moist  upon  their  bodies  while  they  slept,  looking  like  the 
naiads  of  the  past. 

We  were  already  warm  from  walking,  and  I,  in  my 
pareu  and  light  coat  of  pongee  silk,  looked  longingly  at 
the  water  sparkling  in  the  sun,  but  the  princess  took  me 
by  the  hand  and  led  me  on. 

"It  were  better  to  go  directly  up  the  valley  and  out  of 
the  heat,"  she  advised.  "We  shall  have  many  pools  to 
bathe  in." 

It  was  at  the  next  that  I  took  from  my  pocket 
"Rarahu,  ou  le  mariage  de  Loti,"  a  thin,  poorly  printed 
book  in  pink  paper  covers  that  I  had  possessed  since 
boyhood,  and  which  I  had  read  again  on  the  ship  com- 
ing to  Tahiti.  The  princess,  like  all  reading  Tahiti, 
knew  it  better  than  I,  for  it  was  the  first  novel  in  French 
with  its  scenes  in  that  island,  and  for  more  than  forty 
years  had  been  talked  about  there. 

"Here  at  this  pool,"  she  said,  with  her  finger  on  the 
page,  "Loti  surprised  Rarahu  one  afternoon  when  for 
a  red  ribbon  she  let  an  old  and  hideous  Chinese  kiss 
her  naked  shoulder.  Mon  dicu!  That  French  naval 


222  MYSTIC  ISLES 

officer  made  a  bruit  about  a  poor  little  Tahitian  girl! 
We  will  talk  about  her  when  we  are  at  dejeuner." 

Dejeuner!  My  heart  leaped.  Whence  would  the 
luncheon  come?  Had  this  child  of  Tahiti  arranged  be- 
forehand that  she  should  be  met  by  a  jinn  with  sand- 
wiches and  cakes  ?  I  dared  not  ask. 

We  pushed  on,  and  passed  many  residences  of  natives. 
They  were  almost  all  of  European  construction,  board 
cottages,  because  the  houses  of  native  sort  are  forbidden 
within  the  municipal  limits.  Beyond  them  we  saw  no 
houses.  The  Tahitian  families  were  cooking  their 
breakfasts,  brought  from  the  market,  on  little  fires  out- 
side their  houses.  They  all  smiled,  and  called  to  us  to 
partake  with  them. 

"I  a  or  a  na!    Haere  mai  amu!" 

"Greeting!     Come  eat  with  us!" 

They  looked  happy  in  the  sunshine,  the  smoke  curl- 
ing about  them  in  milky  wreaths,  the  men  naked  except 
for  pareus,  and  the  children  quite  as  born.  Fragrance 
of  the  Jasmine  answered  all  with  pleasant  badinage, 
and  each  must  know  whither  we  were  bound.  They 
thought  it  not  at  all  odd,  apparently,  that  a  princess  of 
their  race  should  be  going  to  the  waterfalls  with  a  for- 
eigner, and  they  beamed  on  me  to  assure  me  of  their  in- 
terest and  understanding. 

The  broad  avenue  lessened  into  a  broken  road,  roofed 
by  many  kinds  of  trees.  Though  the  sun  ascended 
from  the  ocean  on  the  other  side  of  Tahiti  above  the  fan- 
tastic peak  of  Maiauo,  it  had  not  shed  a  beam  upon  the 
ferns  and  mosses.  The  guava  was  a  dense  growth. 
Like  the  lantana  of  Hawaii  and  Ceylon,  imported  to 
Tahiti  to  fill  a  want,  it  had  abused  hospitality,  and  be- 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  223 

come  a  nuisance  without  apparent  remedy.  How  often 
man  works  but  in  circles!  Everywhere  in  the  world 
plants  and  insects,  birds  and  animals,  had  been  pointed 
out  to  me  that  had  been  acquired  for  a  beneficent  pur- 
pose, and  had  become  a  curse. 

The  mina-bird  was  brought  to  Tahiti  from  the  Moluc- 
cas to  eat  wasps  which  came  from  South  America,  and 
were  called  Jack  Spaniards.  The  mina,  perhaps,  ate 
the  insects,  but  he  also  ate  everything  else,  including 
fruit.  He  stole  bread  and  butter  off  tables,  and  his 
hoarse  croak  or  defiant  rattle  was  an  oft-repeated  warn- 
ing to  defend  one's  food.  The  minas  were  many  in 
Tahiti,  and,  like  the  English  sparrow  in  American  cities 
and  towns,  had  .driven  almost  all  other  birds  to  flight  or 
local  extinction.  The  sparrow's  urban  doom  might  be 
read  in  the  increasing  number  of  automobiles,  but  the 
mina  in  Tahiti,  as  in  Hawaii,  had  a  sinecure. 

Noanoa  Tiare  said  that  the  guava  had  its  merits. 
Horses  and  cattle  ate  its  leaves  and  fruit,  and  the  wood 
was  a  common  fuel  throughout  Tahiti.  The  fruit  was 
delicious,  and  in  America  or  England  would  be  all  used 
for  jelly,  but  only  Lovaina  preserved  it.  The  passion- 
flowers of  the  granadilla  vines,  white  and  star-like,  with 
purpling  centers,  were  intermingled  with  the  guavas,  a 
brilliant  and  aromatic  show,  the  fruit  like  miniature 
golden  pumpkins.  Their  acid,  sweetish  pulp  contained 
many  seeds,  each  incased  in  white  jelly.  One  ate  the 
seeds  only,  though  the  pulp,  when  cooked,  was  palatable. 

The  road  dwindled  into  a  narrower  path,  and  then  a 
mere  trail.  The  road  had  crossed  the  brook  many  times 
on  frail  bridges,  some  tottering  and  others  only  rem- 
nants. Habitations  ceased,  and  we  were  in  a  dark, 


224  MYSTIC  ISLES 

splendid  gorge,  narrow,  and  affording  one  no  vision 
straight  ahead  except  at  intervals. 

The  princess  named  many  of  the  growths  we  passed, 
and  explained  their  qualities.  The  native  is  very  close 
to  the  ground.  The  lantana,  with  its  yellow  and  ma- 
genta flowerets,  umbrella  ferns,  and  ailiere,  the  herbe  de 
vache,  and  the  bohenia,  used  by  the  Tahitians  for  an 
eye  lotion,  were  all  about.  Palms,  with  cocoanuts  of  a 
half  dozen  stages  of  growth,  and  giant  banana-plants 
lined  the  banks,  and  bushes  with  blue  flowers  like  violets, 
and  one  with  red  buttons,  intermingled  with  limes  and 
oranges  to  form  a  thicket  through  which  we  could  hardly 
force  our  way. 

We  were  yet  on  the  level  of  the  rivulet,  but  now,  the 
princess  said,  must  take  to  the  cliff.  We  had  come  to 
a  pool  which  in  symmetry  and  depth,  in  coolness  and 
invitingness,  outranked  all  before.  I  was  very  hot,  the 
beads  of  perspiration  like  those  in  a  steamroom. 

"We  will  rest  here  a  few  minutes,  and  you  may 
bathe,"  said  my  lovely  guide.  "I  have  not  been  to 
Fautaua  vaimato  for  several  years,  but  I  never  forget 
the  way.  I  will  make  a  basket,  and  here  we  will  gather 
some  fruit  for  our  dejeuner  for  fear  there  might  not  be 
plenty  at  the  waterfalls." 

I  took  off  my  tennis-shoes,  hung  my  silk  coat  on  a 
limb,  and  plunged  into  the  pool.  Never  but  in  the 
tropics  does  the  human  being  fully  enjoy  the  dash  into 
cool  water.  There  it  is  a  tingling  pleasure.  I  dived 
time  and  again,  and  then  sat  in  the  small  glitter  of  sun- 
light to  dry  and  to  watch  Noanoa  Tiare  make  the  basket. 
She  said  she  had  a  wide  choice  there,  as  the  leaves  of  the 
banana,  cocoanut,  bamboo,  pandanus,  or  aihere  would 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  225 

serve.  She  had  selected  the  aihere,  the  common  weed, 
and  out  of  its  leaves  she  deftly  fashioned  a  basket  a  foot 
long  and  wide  and  deep. 

Although  she  had  been  in  Paris  and  London  and  in 
New  York,  knew  how  to  play  Beethoven  and  Grieg  and 
Saint- Saens,  had  had  gowns  made  by  Paquin,  and  her 
portrait  in  the  salon,  she  was  at  home  in  this  glade  as  a 
Tahitian  girl  a  hundred  years  ago.  The  airs  of  the  ave- 
nue de  1'Opera  in  Paris,  and,  too,  of  the  rue  de  Rivoli  in 
Papeete,  were  rarefied  in  this  simple  spot  to  the  im- 
pulses and  experiences  of  her  childhood  in  the  groves 
and  on  the  beaches  of  her  beloved  island. 

When  I  had  on  my  coat,  we  gathered  limes,  bananas, 
oranges,  and  a  wild  pineapple  that  grew  near  by  in  a 
tangle  of  coffee  and  vanilla,  and  the  graceful  acalypha. 
The  yellow  tecoma,  a  choice  exotic  in  America,  shed  its 
seeds  upon  the  sow  thistle,  a  salad,  and  the  ape  or  wild 
taro.  The  great  leaves  of  the  ape  are  like  our  elephant's 
ear  plant,  and  the  roots,  as  big  as  war-clubs,  are  tubers 
that  take  the  place  of  potatoes  here.  In  Hawaii, 
crushed  and  fermented,  and  called  poi,  they  were  ever 
the  main  food.  The  juice  of  the  leaf  stings  one's  skin. 

The  princess  removed  her  shoes  and  stockings,  and  I 
carried  them  over  my  shoulder.  We  deflected  from 
the  rivulet  to  the  cliff  above  it,  and  there  forced  our  way 
along  the  mountain-side,  feeling  almost  by  instinct  the 
trail  hidden  by  the  mass  of  creepers  and  plants. 

It  was  a  real  jungle.  Man  had  once  dwelt  there 
when  his  numbers  in  this  island  were  many  times  greater. 
Then  every  foot  of  ground  from  the  precipices  to  the 
sea  was  cleared  for  the  breadfruit,  the  taro,  the  cocoa- 
nut,  and  other  life-giving  growths,  which  sowed  them- 


226  MYSTIC  ISLES 

selves  and  asked  no  cultivation.  Now,  except  for  the 
faint  trail,  I  was  on  primeval  ground,  from  all  appear- 
ances. 

The  canon  grew  narrower  and  darker.  The  unde- 
fined path  lay  inches  deep  in  water,  and  the  levels  were 
shallow  swamp.  Xature  was  in  vast  luxuriance,  in  a 
revel  of  aloofness  from  human  beings,  casting  its  wealth 
of  blazing  colors  and  surprising  shapes  upon  every  side. 
We  slid  down  the  edge  of  the  hill  to  the  burn,  where  the 
massive  boulders  and  shattered  rocks  were  camouflaged 
by  the  painting  of  moss  and  lichen,  the  ginger,  turmeric, 
caladium,  and  dracasna,  and  by  the  overhanging  palms 
covered  with  the  rich  bird's-nest  ferns. 

We  sat  again  in  this  wild  garden  of  the  tropic  to  in- 
vite our  souls  to  drink  the  beauty  and  quietude,  the  ab- 
sence of  mankind  and  the  nearness  of  nature.  We  be- 
came very  still,  and  soon  heard  the  sounds  of  bird  and 
insect  above  the  lower  notes  of  the  brawling  stream. 

The  princess  put  her  finger  on  her  lips  and  whispered 
in  my  ear: 

"Do  you  hear  the  warbling  of  the  omamao  and  the 
otatare?  They  are  our  song-birds.  They  are  in  these 
high  valleys  only,  for  the  mina  has  frightened  them  from 
below — the  mina  that  came  with  the  ugly  Chinese." 

"Noanoa  Tiare,"  said  I,  "you  Tahitians  are  the  birds 
of  paradise  of  the  human  family.  You  have  been  driven 
from  the  rich  valleys  of  your  old  life  to  hills  of  bare  ex- 
istence by  the  minas  of  commerce  and  politics.  I  feel 
like  apologizing  for  my  civilization." 

She  pressed  my  hand. 

"Taisez-tous!"  she  replied,  smiling.  "Aita  peapea. 
I  am  always  happy.  Remember  I  still  live  in  Tahiti, 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  227 

and  this  is  my  time.  My  foremothers'  day  is  past. 
Allans!  We  will  be  soon  at  the  vaitnato,  and  there  we 
will  have  the  dejeuner." 

As  we  moved  on  I  saw  that  the  yellow  flowers  of  the 
purau,  dried  red  by  the  sun, — poultices  for  natives' 
bruises, — and  candlenuts  in  heaps, — torches  ready  to 
hand, — littered  the  moss. 

The  mountain  loomed  in  the  distance,  and  the  im- 
mense Pic  du  Fran9ais  towered  in  shadow.  Faintly  I 
heard  the  boom  of  the  waterfall,  and  knew  we  were  near- 
ing  the  goal. 

The  canon  grew  yet  narrower  and  darker,  and  the 
crash  of  water  louder.  We  had  again  attained  a  con- 
siderable height  over  the  stream,  and  the  trail  seemed 
lost.  The  princess  took  my  hand,  and  cautiously  feel- 
ing the  creepers  and  plants  under  our  feet,  we  slipped 
and  crept  down  the  hidden  path.  Suddenly,  the  light 
became  brilliant,  and  I  found  myself  in  a  huge  broken 
bowl  of  lava  rock,  the  walls  almost  vertical.  From  the 
summit  of  the  precipice  facing  me  fell  a  superb  cascade 
into  a  deep  and  troubled  tarn.  The  stream  was  spun 
silver  in  the  sun,  which  now  was  warm  and  splendid.  So 
far  it  fell  that  much  of  it  never  reached  the  pool  as  water, 
but,  blown  by  the  gentle  breeze,  a  moiety  in  spume  and 
spray  wet  the  earth  for  an  acre  about.  Like  the  veil  of 
a  bride,  the  spindrift  spread  in  argent  clouds,  and  a 
hundred  yards  away  dropped  like  gentle  rain  upon  us. 
Verdure  covered  everything  below  except  where  the  river 
ran  from  the  tarn  and  hurried  to  the  lesser  things  of  the 
town.  The  giant  walls,  as  black  as  the  interior  of  an 
old  furnace,  were  festooned  with  magnificent  tree  ferns, 
the  exquisite  maidenhair,  lianas,  and  golden-green 


228  MYSTIC  ISLES 

mosses,  all  sparkling  in  the  sun  with  the  million  drops 
of  the  vcdmato. 

We  withdrew  a  few  paces  from  the  vapor,  and  found 
a  place  on  the  edge  of  the  brook  to  have  our  fruit  and, 
perhaps,  a  siesta.  A  carpet  of  moss  and  green  leaves 
made  a  couch  of  Petronian  ease,  and  we  threw  ourselves 
upon  it  with  the  weariness  of  six  miles  afoot  uphill  in 
the  tropics.  It  was  not  hot  like  the  summer  heat  of 
Xew  York,  for  Tahiti  has  the  most  admirable  climate  I 
have  found  the  world  over,  but  at  midday  I  had  felt  the 
warmth  penetratingly.  Xoanoa  Tiare  made  nothing  of 
it,  but  suggested  that  we  both  leap  into  the  tarn. 

I  knew  a  moment  of  squeamishness,  echo  of  the  im- 
morality of  my  catechism  and  my  race  conventions.  I 
felt  almost  aghast  at  finding  myself  alone  with  that 
magnificent  creature  in  such  a  paradisiacal  spot.  I 
wondered  what  thoughts  might  come  to  me.  I  had 
danced  with  her,  I  had  talked  with  her  under  the  stars, 
but  what  might  she  expect  me  not  to  do?  And  what 
was  an  Occidental,  a  city  man,  before  her  ?  She  retired 
behind  a  bird's-nest  fern,  on  the  long,  lanceolate  leaves 
of  which  were  the  shells  of  the  mountain  snail.  At  her 
feet  was  the  bastard  canna,  the  pungent  root  of  which 
makes  Chinese  curry. 

When  she  emerged,  she  was  an  amazing  and  enchant- 
ing personage.  She  had  removed  her  gown,  and  wore 
a  pareu  of  muslin,  with  huge  scarlet  leaves  upon  white. 
She  was  tall  and  voluptuously  formed,  but  she  had  made 
the  loin-cloth,  two  yards  long  and  a  yard  wide,  cover 
her  in  a  manner  that  was  modest,  though  revealing.  It 
was  the  art  of  her  ancestors,  for  this  was  the  shape  of 
their  common  garment  of  tapa,  a  native  cloth.  With  a 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  229 

knot  or  two  she  arranged  the  pareu  so  that  it  was  like  a 
chemise,  coming  to  a  foot  above  her  knees  and  covering 
her  bosom. 

Her  black,  glossy  hair  was  loose  and  hung  below  her 
waist,  and  upon  it  she  had  placed  a  wreath  she  had 
quickly  made  of  small  ferns.  That  was  their  general 
custom,  to  adorn  themselves  when  happy  and  at  the 
bath.  The  eyes  of  Fragrance  of  the  Jasmine  were  very 
large,  deep  brown,  her  skin  a  coppery-cinnamon,  with 
a  touch  of  red  in  the  cheeks,  and  her  nose  and  mouth 
were  large  and  well  formed.  Her  teeth  were  as  the 
meat  of  the  cocoanut,  brilliant  and  strong.  Her  limbs 
were  rounded,  soft,  the  flesh  glowing  with  health  and 
power.  She  was  of  that  line  of  Tahitian  women  who 
sent  back  the  first  European  navigators,  the  English,  to 
rave  about  an  island  of  Junos,  the  French  to  call  Tahiti 
La  Nouvelle  Cythere,  the  new  isle  of  Venus. 

I  had  but  to  tie  up  my  own  pareu  of  red  calico  with 
white  leaves  in  the  manner  Lovaina  had  shown  me  to 
have  an  imitation  of  our  usual  swimming-trunks. 

" Allans!"  cried  the  princess,  and  running  toward  the 
waterfall,  she  climbed  up  the  cliff  to  a  height  of  a  dozen 
feet,  and  threw  herself,  wreathed  as  she  was,  with  a 
loud  " Aue!"  into  the  pool. 

I  followed  her,  and  she  dived  and  swam,  brought  up 
bottom,  treaded  water,  and  led  me  in  a  dozen  exercises 
and  tricks  of  the  expert  swimmer.  The  water  was  very 
cool,  and  ten  minutes  in  it,  with  our  sharpening  hunger, 
were  enough  delight.  Fragrance  of  the  Jasmine,  as  she 
came  dripping  from  water  and  lingered  a  few  moments 
on  the  brink,  was  a  rapturous  object.  With  uncon- 
scious grace  she  flung  back  her  head  many  times  to  shake 


230  MYSTIC  ISLES 

the  moisture  from  her  thick  hair,  and  ran  her  fingers 
through  it  until  the  strands  were  fairly  separated.  The 
pareu  disclosed  the  rounded  contour  of  her  figure  as  if 
it  were  painted  upon  her.  She  was  one  of  those  ancient 
Greek  statues,  those  semi-nudes  on  which  the  artists 
painted  in  vivid  tints  the  blush  of  youth,  the  hue  of  hair, 
and  a  shadow  of  a  garment.  She  entranced  me,  and  I 
called  out  to  her,  "Nchenehe!"  "Beautiful!" 

She  ran  to  her  boudoir  behind  the  bird's-nest  fern, 
and  soon  returned  in  her  tunic,  still  barefoot,  and  with 
her  pareu  in  her  hand  for  drying  on  a  rock.  She 
brought  two  wreaths  now  and  put  one  upon  me.  We 
resumed  our  couches  upon  the  green  sward,  and  the 
princess  laid  the  basket  of  fruit  between  us. 

"Maintenant  pour  le  dejeuner!"  she  said. 

We  ate  the  bananas  first,  and  then  the  pineapple, 
which  wre  cut  writh  a  sliver  of  basalt, — we  were  in  the 
stone  age,  as  her  tribe  was  when  the  whites  came, — and 
last  the  oranges.  She  made  cups  of  leaves  and  filled 
them  with  water,  and  into  them  we  squeezed  the  limes 
for  a  toast. 

"Inu  i  te  ota  no  te!"  she  said  and  lifted  her  cup.  "A 
health  to  you !  He  who  eats  the  fci  passes  under  a  spell ; 
he  must  return  again  to  the  islands.  Have  you  eaten 
the  fci?" 

"Not  yet,  Princess,"  I  replied. 

"There -they  are  in  abundance  on  the  hillside,"  she 
said.  "Look!  If  we  had  fire,  I  would  roast  one  for 
you,  but  to-morrow  will  be  another  day." 

The  fci,  the  mountain  banana,  the  staple  of  the  Ta- 
hitian,  was  there  aplenty.  The  plant  or  stalk  was  that 
of  the  banana,  but  very  dark  at  the  base,  and  the  leaves 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  231 

thicker.  The  fruit  was  two  or  three  times  as  large,  and 
red,  and  a  striking  difference  was  that  it  was  placed  on 
the  bunches  erect,  while  bananas  hang  down  from  the 
stem. 

I  drank  to  her  increasing  charm,  and  I  told  her  how 
much  the  beauty  and  natural  grace  of  the  Tahitians  ap- 
pealed to  me;  how  I  intended  to  leave  Papeete  and  go 
to  the  end  of  the  island  to  be  among  the  natives  only; 
that  I  had  remained  thus  long  in  the  city  to  learn  first 
the  ways  of  the  white  in  the  tropics,  and  then  to  gain 
the  contrast  by  seeking  the  Tahitian  as  nearly  as  pos- 
sible in  his  original  habitat. 

Xoanoa  Tiare  took  the  orange-peel  and  rubbed  it 
upon  her  hair. 

"Noanoaf"  she  said.  ffMon  ami  americain,  I  will 
give  you  a  note  to  Aruoehau  a  Moeroa,  the  tavana,  or 
chief  of  Mataiea  district,  and  you  can  stay  with  him. 
You  will  know  him  as  Tetuanui.  He  will  gladly  re- 
ceive you,  and  he  is  wise  in  our  history  and  our  old  cus- 
toms. Do  not  expect  too  much !  We  ate  in  the  old  day 
the  simple  things  at  hand,  fish  and  breadfruit,  feis  and 
cocoanut  milk,  mangoes  and  bananas  and  oranges. 
Now  we  eat  the  dirty  and  prepared  food  of  the  Tinito, 
the  Chinaman,  and  we  depend  on  coffee  and  rum  and 
beer  for  strength.  The  thin  wheat  bread  has  no  nour- 
ishment compared  with  the  breadfruit  and  the  feif  the 
yam  and  the  taro.  And  clothes!  The  fools  taught  us 
that  the  pareu,  which  left  the  body  exposed  to  the  air, 
clean  and  refreshed  by  the  sun  and  the  winds,  was  im- 
modest. We  exchanged  it  for  undershirts  and  trous- 
ers and  dresses  and  shoes  and  stockings  and  coats,  and 
got  disease  and  death  and  degeneration. 


232  MYSTIC  ISLES 

"You  are  late,  my  friend,"  the  princess  went  on,  with 
a  note  of  pity  in  her  soft  voice.  "My  mother  remem- 
bered the  days  Loti  depicted  in  'Rarahu.1  My  grand- 
mother knew  little  Tarahu  of  Bora-Bora  of  whom  he 
wrote.  Viaud  was  then  a  midshipman.  We  did  not 
call  him  Loti,  but  Roti,  our  coined  word  for  a  rose,  be- 
cause he  had  rosy  cheeks.  But  he  could  not  call  him- 
self Roti  in  his  novel,  for  in  French,  his  language,  that 
meant  roasted,  and  one  might  think  of  bceuf  a  la  roti. 
We  have  no  L  in  Tahitian.  We  also  called  him  Mata 
Reva  or  the  Deep-Eyed  One.  Tarahu  was  not  born  on 
Bora-Bora,  but  right  here  in  Mataiea." 

She  lay  at  full  length,  her  uptilted  face  in  her  hands, 
and  her  perfect  feet  raised  now  and  then  in  unaware 
accentuation  of  her  words. 

"What  Tahitian  women  there  were  then!  Read  the 
old  French  writers!  None  was  a  pigmy.  When  they 
stood  under  the  waterfall  the  water  ran  off  their  skins  as 
off  a  marble  table.  Not  a  drop  stayed  on.  They  were 
as  smooth  as  glass." 

Fragrance  of  the  Jasmine  sighed. 

"Aue!    Helas!" 

I  had  it  in  my  mouth  to  say  that  she  was  as  beautiful 
and  as  smooth-skinned  as  any  of  her  forebears.  She 
was  as  enticing  as  imaginable,  her  languorous  eyes  alight 
as  she  spoke,  and  her  bare  limbs  moving  in  the  vigor 
of  her  thoughts.  But  I  could  not  think  of  anything  in 
French  or  English  not  banal,  and  my  Tahitian  was  yet 
too  limited  to  permit  me  to  tutoyer  her.  She  was  an 
islander,  but  she  had  seen  the  Midnight  Follies  and  the 
fial  Bullier,  the  carnival  in  Xice,  and  once,  New  Year's 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  233 

Eve  in  San  Francisco.  An  Italian  and  a  Scandinavian 
prince  had  wooed  her. 

I  spoke  of  Loti  again,  and  of  other  writers'  comments 
upon  the  attitude  of  women  in  Tahiti  toward  man. 

The  princess  sat  up  and  adjusted  her  hei  of  ferns. 
She  studied  a  minute,  and  then  she  said : 

"I  have  long  wanted  to  talk  with  an  intelligent 
American  on  that  subject;  with  some  one  who  knew 
Europe  and  his  own  country  and  these  islands.  There 
is  a  vast  hypocrisy  in  the  writing  and  the  talking  about 
it.  Now,  Maru  (I  already  had  been  given  my  native 
name),  the  woman  of  Tahiti  exercises  the  same  sexual 
freedom  as  the  average  white  man  does  in  your  country 
and  in  England  or  France.  She  pursues  the  man  she 
wants,  as  he  does  the  woman.  Your  women  pursue,  too, 
but  they  do  it  by  cunning,  by  little  lies,  by  coquetry,  by 
displaying  their  persons,  by  flattery,  and  by  feeding 
you. 

"The  Tahitian  woman  makes  the  first  advances  in 
friendship  openly,  if  she  chooses.  She  arranges  time 
and  place  for  amours  as  your  women  do.  She  does  not 
take  from  the  Tahitian  man  or  from  the  foreigner  his 
right  to  choose,  but  she  chooses  herself,  too.  I  feel  sure 
that  often  an  American  woman  would  give  hours  of 
pain  to  know  well  a  certain  man,  but  makes  no  honest 
effort  to  draw  him  toward  her.  They  have  told  me  so!" 

I  got  up,  and  standing  beside  her,  I  quoted : 

"Ships  that  pass  in  the  night  and  speak  each  other  in  passing; 
Only  a  signal  shown  and  a  distant  voice  in  the  darkness ; 
So  on  the  ocean  of  life  we  pass  and  speak  one  another, 
Only  a  look  and  a  voice ;  then  darkness  again  and  silence." 


234  MYSTIC  ISLES 

"Mais,  c'est  vrai!"  she  said,  musingly.  "The  Ta- 
hitian  woman  will  not  endure  that.  She  is  on  a  par  with 
the  man  in  seeking.  Without  fear  and  without  shame, 
and,  attendee,  Maru,  without  any  more  monogamy  than 
you  men.  I  have  told  some  of  those  suffrage  ladies  of 
London  and  of  Washington  that  we  are  in  advance  of 
their  most  determined  feminism.  They  will  come  to  it. 
More  women  than  men  in  Europe  will  bring  it  there." 

Her  long,  black  lashes  touched  her  cheeks. 

"We  are  a  little  sleepy,  riest-ce  pas?"  she  asked. 
"E'en,  we  will  have  a  taoto." 

She  made  herself  a  pillow  of  leaves  with  her  pareu, 
and  arranging  her  hair  in  two  braids,  she  stretched  her- 
self out,  with  her  face  toward  the  sky,  and  a  cool  banana- 
leaf  laid  over  it.  I  copied  her  action,  and  lulled  by  the 
falling  water,  the  rippling  of  the  pool,  and  the  drowsy 
rustling  of  the  trees,  I  fell  fast  asleep,  and  dreamed  of 
Eve  and  the  lotus-eaters. 

When  I  awoke,  the  princess  was  refreshing  her  face 
and  hands  in  the  water. 

"A  hio!  Look!"  she  said  eagerly.  "O  tane  and  O 
vahine!" 

In  the  mist  above  the  pool  at  the  foot  of  the  cascade 
a  double  rainbow  gleamed  brilliantly.  O  tane  is  the 
man,  which  the  Tahitians  call  the  real  arch,  and  O 
vahine,  the  woman,  the  reflected  bow.  They  appeared 
and  disappeared  with  the  movement  of  the  tiny,  fleecy 
clouds  about  the  sun.  The  air,  as  dewy  as  early  morn 
in  the  braes  o'  Maxwelton,  was  deliciously  cool. 

"If  you  have  courage  and  strength  left,"  the  princess 
said  excitedly,  "we  will  go  to  the  fort  of  Fautaua,  and 
I  will  show  you  where  the  last  of  my  people  perished 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  235 

fighting  to  drive  out  the  French  invader,  and  where  the 
French  officials  fled  with  the  treasure-box  when  they 
feared  war  with  England  not  very  long  ago." 

She  pointed  up  to  the  brim  of  the  precipice,  where  the 
river  launched  itself  into  the  air,  to  drop  six  hundred 
feet  before  it  fed  the  stream  below.  Sheer  and  menac- 
ing the  black  walls  of  the  crevasse  loomed,  as  if  forbid- 
ding approach,  but  through  a  network  of  vines  and 
bushes,  over  a  path  seldom  used,  we  climbed,  and  after 
half  a  mile  more  of  steeps,  reached  the  fort.  Rugged 
was  the  way,  and  we  aided  each  other  more  than  once, 
but  rejoiced  at  our  effort  when  we  surmounted  the 
summit. 

The  view  was  indescribably  grand.  One  felt  upon 
the  roof  of  the  island,  though  the  farther  heights  of  the 
valley  culminated  in  a  gigantic  crag-wall,  a  saddle  only 
a  yard  across,  and  wooded  to  the  apex,  and  above  that 
even  towered  Orohena,  nearly  a  mile  and  a  half  high, 
and  never  reached  by  man  despite  many  efforts. 
Tropic  birds,  the  bo's'ns  of  the  sailor,  their  bodies 
whitish  gray,  with  their  two  long  tail-feathers,  had  their 
haunt  there,  and  piped  above  the  trees.  The  river  was 
a  fierce  torrent,  and  leaped  into  a  water-hewn  lava  basin, 
where  it  swirled  and  foamed  before  it  rushed,  singing, 
through  a  stone  funnel  to  the  border  of  the  chasm,  and 
sprang  with  a  dull  roar  into  the  ether. 

There  was  a  chorus  of  sounds  from  the  cataract,  the 
river,  the  wind,  the  trees,  and  the  birds,  a  mighty  music 
of  elements  of  the  earth  and  of  life,  rising  and  falling 
rhythmically,  and  inspiring,  but  nerve-racking.  Fra- 
grance of  the  Jasmine  seized  my  hand  and  held  it. 

"Let  us  go  to  a  more  peaceful  spot,  where  I  can  tell 


236  MYSTIC  ISLES 

you  the  story,"  she  said  in  my  ear.  We  passed  the 
rough  fort,  broken-down  and  mossy,  and  moving  care- 
fully along  the  trail,  clambering  over  rocks  and  tearing 
away  twigs  and  broad  leaves,  we  reached  a  dismantled 
and  crumbling  chalet. 

We  sat  down  upon  its  steps,  and  I  removed  my 
coat  and  was  naked  to  my  pareu  in  the  afternoon 
zephyr. 

"That  fort,"  said  the  princess,  "was  built  by  the 
French  in  the  forties,  when  they  were  stealing  my  coun- 
try. From  it  they  could  command  the  gorge  of  Fau- 
taua  and  that  and  other  valleys.  This  place  was  the  last 
stronghold  of  the  Tahitian  warriors  before  the  enemy 
overcame  them,  and  erected  the  ramparts  and  the  fort. 
The  last  man  to  die  fell  by  the  river  basin.  The  band 
of  heroes  would  have  held  out  longer,  but  were  betrayed 
by  a  Tahitian.  He  led  the  French  troops  by  night  and 
by  secret  paths  to  a  hill  overlooking  them,  so  that  they 
were  shot  down  from  above.  The  traitor  lived  to  wear 
the  red  ribbon  of  the  Legion  of  Honor  and  to  spend 
pleasantly  the  gold  the  French  Government  gave  him. 
C'est  la  vie.3' 

We  cast  our  eyes  over  the  scene.  There  was  a  forest 
of  wild  ginger,  ferns,  and  dracsena  all  about.  Thou- 
sands of  roses  perfumed  the  air,  and  other  flowers  and 
strawberries,  and  feis,  green  or  ripe-red,  wondrous 
clusters  of  fruit,  awaited  man's  culling.  The  stream 
purled  about  worn  rocks,  and  we  came  to  two  gloomy 
pools,  black  from  the  reflection  of  their  bowls,  the  water 
bubbling  and  surging  from  springs  beneath.  It  was 
deliciously  cold,  and  we  drank  it  from  leaf  cups. 

"How  about  the  time  the  French  came  here  with  the 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  237 

treasure?"  I  inquired.  "Have  we  time  for  that  his- 
tory?" 

"Mais,  ouir  said  Noanoa  Tiare.  "That  is  too  good 
for  you  not  to  know.  You  know  that  the  French  are 
excitable,  n'est-ce  pas?  Wen,  a  French  officer,  Major 
Marchand,  put  up  the  tricolor  in  some  place  called 
Fashoda  in  Africa,  and  the  English  objected.  There 
was  some  parleying  between  the  two  nations,  and  the 
information  arrived  in  Tahiti  that  England  was  going 
to  make  war  on  France.  The  French  papers  or  the 
American  papers  said  so,  and  every  one  was  alarmed. 

"  'The  treacherous  Anglais  might  strike  at  any 
moment,'  said  the  French,  and  they  were  afraid.  Then 
one  night  some  one  rode  in  from  near  Point  Venus  and 
reported  to  the  Governor  that  two  British  frigates  had 
been  sighted.  Mon  dieu!  what  to  do?  There  was  only 
a  French  transport  at  Papeete,  worth  nothing  for  de- 
fense. They  tore  the  trimmings  from  that  vessel  and 
prepared  to  scuttle  her.  The  guns  were  rushed  to  Faere 
Hill  for  a  last,  desperate  stand  against  odds.  They 
could  die  like  Frenchmen!  All  lights  were  ordered  ex- 
tinguished, and  even  the  beacon  of  Point  Venus  was 
dark.  The  enlisted  natives  were  sent  to  watch  on  every 
headland,  a  cabinet  meeting  was  held, — the  apothecary, 
and  the  governor,  and  the  secretaries,  and  the  doctor, — 
and  it  was  determined  to  save  the  money  of  the  city  and 
the  archives  of  the  Government.  The  valuables  and 
the  papers  were  put  in  strong  boxes  and  the  governor 
and  all  of  them  made  a  mad  race  for  this  fort." 

The  princess  covered  her  mouth  with  her  hand  to  still 
her  laughter. 

"Was  it  not  funny?     They  arrived  here  at  daybreak, 


238  MYSTIC  ISLES 

and  buried  the  boxes.  They  were  still  at  it  when  an 
officer  of  marines  came  hurrying  to  notify  them  that  the 
frigates  were  French  schooners  from  the  Paumotus. 
The  whole  population  had  hidden  itself  away  in  the 
meantime.  Well,  they  had  many  jokes  about  it  and 
many  songs,  but  the  governor  built  this  house  on  the 
steps  of  which  we  sit  as  a  permanent  depository  for 
archives  in  case  of  war,  and  here  he  used  to  come  for 
picnics  until  a  few  years  ago.  There  was  a  post-office, 
with  a  guard  of  sailors,  here.  They  planted  the  garden, 
the  flowers,  and  strawberries  that  now  run  wild.  You 
know  our  chiefs  were  always  being  secretly  warned  that 
England,  which  owns  most  of  the  islands  in  these  seas, 
wanted  to  seize  our  island." 

Over  the  Diadem  the  dark  shadows  were  lengthening. 
The  daring  pinnacles  of  Maiauo  were  thrust  up  like  the 
mangled  fingers  of  a  black  hand  against  the  blue  sky. 

Noanoa  Tiare  pointed  to  them. 

"The  ahiahi  comes.  Night  is  not  far  off,"  she  said 
warningly.  "If  we  lingered  here  much  longer,  we 
might  have  to  stay  all  the  night." 

"How  memorable  to  me  would  be  a  sunrise  from 
here,"  I  replied.  "I  would  never  forget  it." 

She  looked  at  me  archly  over  her  shoulder. 

"I  would  like  it  myself.  It  would  be  magnificent, 
and  I  have  never  spent  the  night  just  here." 

She  considered  a  moment,  and  my  mind  took  up  the 
matter  of  arrangements.  We  could  cook  feis,  and  there 
was  plenty  of  other  fruit,  with  shelter  in  the  house,  if  we 
needed  that.  We  could  start  down  early  and  be  at 
Lovaina's  for  the  first  dejeuner.  Zeus!  to  pass  the 
night  in  such  a  solitude !  To  hear  in  the  pitch  darkness 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  239 

the  mysterious  voices  of  po,  the  tencbrce  of  the  Tahitian 
gods;  the  boom  of  the  cascade  in  the  abyss;  the  deep 
bass  of  the  river  in  the  rocky  chute ;  the  sigh  of  the  wind 
in  the  trees ;  the  murmur  of  the  stream  near  by ;  the  fan- 
tasia and  dirge  of  the  lofty  night  in  the  tropics.  What 
a  setting  for  her  telling  some  old  legend  or  fairy-tale  of 
Tahiti! 

Fragrance  of  the  Jasmine  ended  my  reverie.  She 
slapped  her  thigh. 

"I  dine  and  dance  to-night  at  eight  o'clock,"  she  said. 
"A  rolii!  We  must  go!  Besides,  Mara,  it  would  be 
too  cold  without  blankets.  The  mercury  here  goes  to 
sixty  of  your  thermometer." 

We  descended  by  the  route  we  had  come,  picking  up 
her  shoes  and  stockings  and  our  hats  by  our  couch,  and 
with  the  princess  leading,  hurrying  along  the  obscuring 
trail.  We  passed  a  Tahitian  youth  who  had  been  gath- 
ering feis,  probably  near  the  tarn,  and  who  was  bringing 
them  to  the  market  of  the  next  morning.  He  was  bur- 
dened with  more  than  a  hundred  pounds  of  fruit,  which 
he  carried  balanced  on  a  pole  over  his  shoulder,  and  with 
this  he  was  to  go  seven  or  eight  miles  from  their  place  of 
growth.  He  was  a  pillar  of  strength,  handsome,  glow- 
ing with  effort,  clad  in  a  gorgeous  pareu  of  red,  and  as 
we  went  by  him,  he  smiled  and  said,  "la  ora  na!  I  liea! 
Vaimato?"  Greeting!  Where  have  you  been?  The 
waterfall?" 

"Ef  hitahita.  Yes,  we  are  hurrying  back,"  the  prin- 
cess called  vivaciously. 

"Those  are  our  real  men,  not  the  Papeete  dolts,"  she 
said.  "If  we  had  time,  we  would  catch  shrimp  in  the 
river.  I  love  to  do  that.'! 


240  MYSTIC  ISLES 

When  we  came  to  where  the  habitations  began  and 
the  road  became  passable  for  vehicles,  Xoanoa  Tiare  sat 
down  on  a  stone.  She  put  on  her  pale-blue  silk  stock- 
ings and  her  shoes,  and  asked  me  for  the  package  she 
had  given  me  at  starting.  She  unfolded  it,  and  it  was 
an  aahu,  a  gown,  for  which  she  exchanged,  behind  a 
banana-plant,  her  soiled  and  drenched  tunic.  The  new 
one  was  of  the  finest  silk,  diaphanous,  and  thus  to  be 
worn  only  at  night.  The  sun  was  down,  and  the  lagoon 
a  purple  lake  when  we  were  again  at  the  bust  of  Bou- 
gainville. 

I  thanked  her  at  parting. 

"Noanoa  Tiare,"  I  said,  "this  day  has  a  heavenly  blue 
page  in  my  record.  It  has  made  Tahiti  a  different 
island  for  me." 

"Maru,  mon  ami,  you  are  sympathetic  to  my  race. 
We  shall  be  dear  friends.  I  will  send  you  the  note  to 

w 

Tetuanui,  the  chief  of  Mataiea,  to-morrow.    Au  revoir 
and  happy  dreams." 


CHAPTER  XIII 

The  beach-combers  of  Papeete — The  consuls  tell  their  troubles — A  bogus 
lord — The  American  boot-blacks — The  cowboy  in  the  hospital — 
Ormsby,  the  supercargo — The  death  of  Tahia — The  Christchurch  Kid — 
The  Nature  men — Ivan  StroganofFs  desire  for  a  new  gland. 

I  PLAYED  badminton  some  afternoons  at  the 
British  consulate.  The  old  wooden  bungalow, 
with  broad  verandas,  stood  in  a  small  garden  a 
dozen  yards  from  the  lagoon,  where  the  Broom  Road 
narrowed  as  it  left  the  business  portion  of  Papeete  and 
began  its  round  of  the  island.  There  was  just  room 
enough  on  the  salt  grass  for  the  shuttlecock  to  fall  out 
of  bounds,  and  for  the  battledores  to  swing  free  of  the 
branches  of  the  trees.  The  consul,  though  he  wore  a 
monocle,  was  without  the  pretense  of  officialdom  except 
to  other  officials  and,  of  course,  at  receptions,  dinners, 
and  formal  gatherings.  After  the  games,  with  tea  on 
the  veranda,  I  heard  many  stories  of  island  life,  of  of- 
ficial amenities,  and  the  compound  of  nationalities  in  our 
little  world. 

Half  a  dozen  intimates  of  the  consul  dropped  in  about 
four,  Willi,  the  rich  dentist  and  acting  American  con- 
sul; Stevens,  the  London  broker;  Hobson,  who  closed 
an  eye  for  the  Moorean,  McTavish;  and  others.  All 
were  British  except  me,  but  our  home  tongue  and  cus- 
toms drew  us  closer  together  than  to  Frenchmen,  and 
we  could  speak  with  some  freedom  on  local  affairs.  If 
no  woman  was  present  other  than  the  cosmopolitan  wife 

241 


242  MYSTIC  ISLES 

of  the  consul,  born  in  Persia,  we  were  quite  at  ease. 

Both  consuls  were  usually  worried  because  of  the  re- 
fusals of  crews  of  vessels  flying  their  flags  to  leave 
Tahiti,  complaints  of  the  police  of  the  misconduct  of 
their  nationals,  or  appeals  for  assistance  from  impe- 
cunious or  spendthrift  tourists.  It  was  an  every-week 
happening  for  sailors  of  American  vessels  and  of  the 
Xew  Zealand  steamships  to  flee  to  the  distant  districts  or 
to  Moorea,  to  live  in  a  breadfruit  grove  with  dryads  who 
asked  no  vows,  or  to  escape  the  grind  of  work  and  dis- 
cipline at  sea. 

They  must  be  pursued  by  the  French  gendarmes, 
under  the  warrant  of  their  own  flag,  caught,  and  sent 
in  irons  aboard  their  ships,  with  fees  paid  by  their 
furious  captains.  Many  times  the  chase  was  futile,  so 
well  did  the  dryads  secrete  them,  and  the  natives  of  the 
district  abet  the  offense.  To  a  Tahitian  an  amorous 
adventure,  either  as  principal  or  aid,  is  half  of  life,  and 
he  would  risk  his  liberty  and  property  to  thwart,  in  his 
opinion,  hard  and  stupid  officials  who  wanted  to  sep- 
arate loving  hearts. 

We  talked  about  the  kinds  of  men,  other  than  these 
sailors,  who  made  Tahiti  their  playground,  to  the  an- 
noyance of  their  consuls.  Crime  among  the  Tahitians 
was  almost  unknown.  A  petty  theft  rarely  happened. 
They  were  never  paupers,  for  their  own  people  cared  for 
them,  and  unless  absolutely  mat-ridden,  they  could  find 
food  on  the  trees  about  them.  The  whites — and  not 
the  French  whites  either — caused  the  trouble,  and  but 
for  them  M.  Lontane  might  have  left  off  his  revolver 
and  club. 

"There  is  a  type  of  Britisher,"  said  the  consul,  "who 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  243 

thinks  Tahiti  is  his  oyster,  to  be  opened  with  false  pre- 
tenses, and  a  pearl  found.  This  type  has  two  varieties, 
impecunious,  but  well-educated,  youths,  younger  sons, 
maybe;  and  valets  and  varlets.  These  scoundrels 
afflict  me  dreadfully,  because  they  all  ultimately  claim 
the  protection  of  the  British  flag  or  are  reported  by  the 
police  for  skullduggery.  There  is  a  fellow  now  on  my 
hands  who  is  threatenin'  suicide.  I  wish  to  Gog  and 
Magog  that  he  would  take  to  the  reef  or  find  a  stick  of 
dynamite.  Monsieur  Lontane,  that  busy  French  gen- 
darme, found  him  tryin'  to  borrow  a  revolver  or  a  sti- 
letto, and  thought  he  was  going  to  kill  a  Frenchman. 
He  put  him  in  the  calaboose  and  brought  his  effects  to 
me.  They  consisted  of  a  book  of  poems  and  a  letter, 
but  not  a  ha'penny." 

"What  does  the  bounder  look  like?"  asked  Stevens. 

"He  looks  like  a  beadle  in  a  dissentin'  church,  with  a 
long,  skinny  neck,  a  pasty  face,  and  a  cockney  accent. 
I  went  to  see  him,  and  he  talked  like  an  underdone 
curate  who  had  had  a  bad  night.  When  he  got  off  the 
ship,  where  he  owed  everybody,  includin'  the  smokin'- 
room,  he  came  to  see  me  with  some  crazy  papers  for  me 
to  sign.  He  said  then  he  had  not  a  shillin',  and  I  ad- 
vised him  to  go  to  work.  He  said  there  was  n't  any 
work ;  so  knowin'  Llewellyn  was  badly  in  need  of  people, 
I  sent  him  to  his  vanilla  plantation  out  Mataiea  way. 
You  know-  here  they  have  n't  the  bees  or  whatever  it  is 
that  transfers  the  pollen  from  the  stigma  to  the  anther 
or  what-d  'ye-call-it,  and  so  they  do  it  by  hand  with  a 
piece  of  bamboo  or  a  stem  of  grass.  The  girls  do  it 
mostly,  but  I  thought  this  jackpuddin'  could  make  an 
honest  pound  or  two.  He  came  tearin'  back  to  me  sayin' 


244  MYSTIC  ISLES 

I  'd  insulted  him  with  the  work,  askin'  him,  a  nobleman, 
to  pander  in  the  vegetable  kingdom." 

"I  know  him.  He  was  at  Lovaina's,"  I  interposed. 
"He  was  at  the  bar  all  the  time,  quoting  Pope  and  Dry- 
den  and  himself.  He  said  he  was  going  around  the 
globe  on  a  wager  of  a  fortune.  He  was  a  poisonous 
bore,  and  always  popped  up  for  a  drink.  By  the  way, 
he  wears  a  monocle." 

"You  Ve  named  him,"  went  on  the  consul.  "That 's 
more  of  the  cockney's  pretense.  Here's  the  poem  he 
wrote  in  the  calaboose.  He  did  it  on  his  shirt-front  be- 
cause the  economical  French  gave  him  no  paper.  Lon- 
tane  thought  it  might  be  his  will  or  a  plot,  and  brought 
the  shirt  here,  and  I  copied  the  accursed  thing  for  my 
record,  as  I  am  compelled  to  by  the  rules  of  the  august 
devils  of  Downing  Street." 

THE  HOME-LAND  CALL 

Why  wilt  thou  torture  me  with  unripe  call, 
Bringing-  these  visions  of  the  dear  old  land? 
Dost  think  't  is  sweet  to  let  thy  mock'ry  fall? 
For  me  to  hear  forgotten  noises  in  the  Strand? 
Insidious  voice  that  will  not  grant  my  plea, 
The  mem'ry  of  thy  pleasures  dost  remain : 
Oxonian-Cantabs  club;  blue-lit  Gaiety!1 

"What  he  needs  is  a  permanent  permit  to  patronize 
the  opium  den  the  Government  runs  here  for  the  Chi- 
nese," said  Hobson.  "He  's  off  his  dope." 

"Just  a  minute,"  continued  the  consul.  "He  claims 
to  be  a  lord  and  a  millionaire.  Here  's  the  letter.  He 
needs  no  opium  to  have  nightmares : 


245 

Tuesday. 

Of  course,  I  will  be  called  coward  now,  but  the  same  people 
who  call  me  this  are  those  who  have  caused  me  to  seek  death, 
for  they  branded  me  liar  and  wastrel,  simply  on  an  untrue 
report  appearing  in  an  American  newspaper.  Chief  among 
these  people  are  that  most  despicable  cad  Hallman,  and  sec- 
ondly, the  British  Consul.  Even  had  I  been  guilty  of  all  that 
has  been  said,  why  were  they  not  manly  and  generous  enough 
to  give  or  find  me  congenial  employment?  They  are  not  blind 
and  could  see  how  anxious  and  willing  I  was  to  obtain  this. 
No,  they  only  gloated  over  my  starving  and  pitiable  condition. 
Well,  they  spring  from  the  proletariat  class  and  not  much  else 
could  be  expected. 

God  only  knows  how  much  I  want  to  live  and  how  I  dread 
having  to  take  my  own  life,  but  only  for  the  sake  of  my  people. 
If  I  could  only  see  them  again  it  would  be  easier.  How  did  I 
ever  fall  so  low!  God  help  me!  Is  there  nothing  else  for  me 
but  this  ignominious  death?  But  I  must  save  my  people  from 
knowing.  I  am  not  using  my  correct  name  here,  so  it  will  be 
useless  for  any  one  to  make  inquiries.  A  volume  of  poems  will 
be  found  in  my  pocket.  I  wonder  if  the  Bishop  would  kindly 
post  these  to  Miss  B.  Wilmer,  Broken  Hill,  West  Australia, 
but  only  telling  her  I  died  here,  without  particulars,  and  saying 
I  have  written  these  since  leaving  home.  Oh,  why  did  I  ever 
leave  there,  where  love  and  all  that  is  good  and  pure  was 
lavished  on  me? 

If  it  is  possible,  could  I  be  buried  in  the  sea?  Just  placed  in 
a  coffin  and  dropped  into  the  peaceful  ocean,  peace  that  I  have 
not  known  for  four  years.  Please  have  this  done  for  me. 

I  do  not  think  I  am  committing  suicide,  rather  I  am  being 
murdered  by  men  who  have  none  of  the  nobler  feelings,  ungener- 
ous, unsympathetic  and  cruelly  unkind.  The  fact  of  my  death 
will  not  affect  one  of  those  who  ruined  my  reputation  here, 
'who  deprived  me  of  obtaining  food,  and  a  room  to  sleep  in. 
They  have  no  more  conscience  so  cannot  feel  remorse.  I  will 
not  sign  my  true  name  but  only  part  of  it. 

GORDON  IXNES. 


246  MYSTIC  ISLES 

"He 's   off  his  onion,"   Stevens   commented.     "The 
bally  fool  needs  hard  labor  and  raw  feis" 

The  consul  grinned. 

"Wait  till  you  hear  me  read  the  document  with  the 
suicide  note.     It's  as  good  as  Marie  Corelli." 

"All  right,  old  thing,"  answered  Stevens.     "Fire  the 
whole  broadside!" 

"No,  no;  I'm  goin'  to  spare  you  the  whole  official 
document.  It  pretends  to  be  a  formal  instruction  to 
this  beef -headed  flunky,  from  his  guardian,  of  a  test  to 
prove  his  mettle  and  gain  experience  to  fit  him  for  the 
highest  posts  of  the  diplomatic  service  by  going  round 
the  bally  world  and  doin'  other  people  in  for  their  tin. 
It  is  a  yard  long,  and  was  undoubtedly  written  by  the 
same  dish-washer  who  wrote  that  doggerel  on  his  shirt. 
It  promises  him  half  a  million  sterling  when  he  comes 
back  to  London  after  visiting  Australasia,  China,  India, 
and  other  countries,  and  pickin'  up  his  tucker  free  as 
he  goes.  Also,  the  shark  is  permitted  to  send  back  for 
coin  at  this  date,  and  he  must  get  married  to  a  Tahitian. 
He  probably  fixes  it  different  in  every  country.  It 's 
signed,  'Your  affectionate  guardian,  James  Kitson, 
Baron  Airedale  of  Gledhow.' ' 

"Whew!"  spluttered  Hobson,  "the  blighter  has  no 
limits.  Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  he  gets  away  with  that 
folderol?" 

"For  months  he  has  lived  at  Lovaina's,  Fanny's, 
and  even  on  the  Chinese.  He  has  borrowed  thousands 
of  francs,  and  spent  it  for  drink  and  often  for  cham- 
pagne. He  did  old  Lovaina  up  for  money  as  well  as 
board.  She  believes  in  him  yet,  and  calls  him  Lord 
Innes  or  Sir  Gordon,  but  says  she  has  no  more  to  risk. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  247 

He  promised  to  build  her  a  big  hotel  where  the  Annexe 
is.  He's  got  many  of  the  Tahitian  girls  and  their 
mothers  mad  over  his  style  and  his  prospects.  Finally, 
he  was  warned  by  me  to  leave  the  island,  and  the  result 
was  his  tryin'  to  borrow  the  lethal  weapon,  the  poem  and 
the  letter.  The  Baron  Airedale  document  he  showed 
me  when  he  first  landed,  to  try  to  get  my  indorsement. 
There  's  no  Burke  in  the  South  Seas,  and  there  prob- 
ably is  no  such  bloomin'  baron.  Sounds  more  like  a 
dog."  The  consul  chuckled. 

"Those  lairds  are  as  plentiful  as  brands  of  Scotch 
whisky  made  in  England,"  Stevens  said  derisively. 
"What  will  you  do  to  uphold  the  honor  of  the  British 
crown?  Is  the  Scotch  bastard  to  go  on  with  his  fairy- 
tale and  do  brown  the  colonials?" 

"I  am  going  to  have  the  diplomat  repair  the  roads 
of  Tahiti  for  two  months,  and  then  ship  him  third-class 
to  Xew  Zealand,  where  he  has  to  go  to  carry  out  his 
blasted  fate,"  the  consul  declared,  and  ordered  all  glasses 
filled. 

We  discussed  the  sudden  and  abnormal  appearance 
of  boot-blacks.  One  had  set  up  an  ornate  stand  on  the 
rue  de  Rivoli.  He  was  an  American,  Tom  Wilkins, 
and  the  first  ever  known  to  practise  his  profession  in  the 
South  Seas.  He  had  come  like  a  non-periodic  comet, 
and  suddenly  flashed  his  brass-tagged  platform  and 
arm-chair  upon  the  gaping  natives.  Most  of  them  be- 
ing barefooted,  one  would  have  thought  his  customers 
not  many;  but  the  novelty  of  a  white  man  doing  any- 
thing for  them  was  irresistible  to  all  who  had  shoes.  He 
did  not  lower  himself  in  their  estimation.  It  is  note- 
worthy that  the  Tahitian  does  not  distinguish  between 


248  MYSTIC  ISLES 

what  we  call  menial  labor  and  other  work.  Nor  did  we 
until  recently.  The  kings  and  nobles  of  Europe  were 
actually  served  by  the  lords  of  the  bedchamber  and  the 
maids  in  waiting.  The  American  boot-black  was  really 
a  boot-white,  as  all  wore  white  canvas  shoes  except 
preachers  and  sailors. 

The  boot- white  called  out,  "Shine!"  and  the  word, 
unpronounceable  by  the  native,  entered  a  himene  as 
tina.  Within  a  week  he  had  his  Tahitian  consort  doing 
the  shining  most  of  the  time  while  he  loafed  in  the  Paris 
saloon.  He  lived  at  the  Annexe,  and  told  me  that  he 
was  not  really  a  boot-cleaner,  but  was  going  around  the 
world  on  a  wager  of  twenty  thousand  dollars,  "with- 
out a  cent."  He,  too,  had  a  credulous  circle,  who  paid 
him  often  five  francs  for  a  shine  to  help  him  win  his  bet 
by  arriving  at  the  New  York  City  Hall  on  a  fixed  date 
with  a  certain  sum  of  money  earned  by  his  hands.  He 
raised  the  American  flag  over  his  stand,  and  referred  to 
Uncle  Sam  as  if  he  were  a  blood  relation  to  whom  he 
could  appeal  for  anything  at  any  time. 

All  the  foregoing  was  brought  out  in  our  conversa- 
tion at  the  British  consul's.  Willi,  temporarily  conduct- 
ing American  affairs  in  French  Oceanic,  gave  a  denoue- 
ment. 

"The  shine  is  n  't  a  bad  fellow,"  he  said,  "but  he  's 
serious  about  the  twenty  thousand  dollars.  His  state- 
ment was  doubted  to-day  by  an  English  sailor,  who 
called  him  'a  blarsted  Hamerican  liar,'  and  the  shine 
took  off  his  own  rubber  leg,  and  knocked  the  sailor  down. 
He  could  move  faster  on  his  one  leg  than  the  other  on 
two,  and  Monsieur  Lontane  had  to  summon  two  assist- 
ants to  take  him  to  the  calaboose.  He  would  n't  re- 


sume  his  rubber  leg.  I  saw  him  being  led  and  pulled 
by  my  office,  calling  out,  'Tell  the  'Merican  consul  a 
good  American  is  in  the  grip  of  the  frogs.' ' 

Within  a  month  of  the  rubber-legged  shiner's  debut, 
there  were  two  other  boot-blacks  on  the  streets.  A 
madness  possessed  the  people,  Tahitians  and  French, 
who  all  their  lives  had  cleaned  their  own  shoes,  to  sit  on 
the  throne-like  chairs,  and  women  and  girls  waited  their 
turns.  John  Conroy  and  a  negro  from  Mississippi  were 
the  additions  to  the  profession,  and  during  the  incar- 
ceration of  the  premier  artist,  his  sweetheart,  a  former 
hula  danseuse,  remained  faithful  to  his  brushes.  When 
a  shoeless  man  or  woman  regarded  the  new-fangled  im- 
portations interestedly,  the  proprietors  offered  to  beau- 
tify their  naked  feet,  and,  ridiculous  as  it  may  seem,  at- 
tempted it. 

Although  I  heard  odd  tales  at  the  consulate,  it  was 
at  the  pare  de  Bougainville  that  I  met  the  gentleman  of 
the  beach  intimately. 

There  I  often  sat  and  talked  with  whomever  loafed. 
Natives  frequented  the  pare  hardly  ever,  but  beach- 
combers, tourists,  and  sailors,  or  casual  residents  in  from 
the  districts,  awaited  there  the  opening  of  the  stores  or 
the  post-office,  or  idled.  The  little  park,  or  wooded 
strip  of  green,  named  after  the  admiral,  and  containing 
his  monument,  skirted  the  quay,  and  was  between  the 
establishment  of  Emile  Levy,  the  pearl-trader,  and  the 
artificial  pool  of  fresh  water  where  the  native  women 
and  sailors  off  the  ships  washed  their  clothes.  From 
one's  bench  one  had  a  view  of  all  the  harbor  and  of  the 
passers-by  on  the  Broom  Road. 

In  the  morning  the  pool  was  thronged  with  the  laun- 


250  MYSTIC  ISLES 

dresses,  and  one  heard  their  paddles  chunking  as  they 
beat  the  clothes.  The  French  warship,  the  Zelee,  was 
moored  close  by,  and  often  the  linen  of  its  crew  hung 
upon  lines  in  the  pare,  and  the  French  sailors  came  and 
went  upon  their  duties,  or  sat  on  the  coral  wall  and 
smoked  and  sang  chansons.  In  the  afternoon  horses 
were  brought  down  to  bathe,  and  guests  of  the  Annexe 
swam  in  the  lagoon.  People  afoot,  driving  carts  or 
carriages,  on  bicycles  and  in  automobiles,  went  by  on  the 
thoroughfare  about  the  island,  the  Frenchmen  always 
talking  as  if  excited  over  cosmic  affairs,  and  the  natives 
laughing  or  calling  to  one  another. 

If  there  happened  to  be  a  shoal  of  fish  near  the  quays, 
I  was  sure  to  see  Joseph,  to  whom  the  wise  Dr.  Funk 
had  confided  his  precious  concoction.  He  would  desert 
the  Cercle  Bougainville,  but  still  within  hail  of  a  sten- 
torious  skipper  whose  coppers  were  dry,  and  with  a 
dozen  other  native  men  and  women,  boys  and  girls,  lure 
the  fish  with  hooks  baited  with  bits  of  salted  shrimp. 
Joseph  was  as  skilful  with  his  rod  as  with  a  shaker,  and 
he  would  catch  twenty  ature,  four  or  five  inches  long,  in 
half  an  hour. 

The  water,  about  fifteen  feet  deep  near  the  made 
embankment,  was  alive  with  the  tiny  fish,  squirming  in 
a  mass  as  they  were  pursued  by  larger  fish.  The  son 
of  Prince  Hinoe,  a  round-shouldered  lout,  very  tall, 
awkward,  and  merry,  held  a  bamboo  pole.  His  white 
suit  was  soiled  and  ragged,  and  he  whistled  "All  Coons 
Look  alike  to  Me!"  The  peanut-vender  had  brought  a 
rod,  and  was  fishing  with  difficulty  and  mostly  by  feel. 
He  could  keep  one  eye  open  only,  as  one  hand  was  oc- 
cupied, but  he  pulled  in  many  ature. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  251 

The  pare  was  the  occasional  assembling-place  for  the 
drifting  whites  made  thoughtful  by  trolling  the  jolly, 
brown  bowl,  and  by  those  to  whom  lack  of  francs  denied 
the  trolling.  It  was  there  I  first  met  Ivan  Stroganoff, 
the  aged  Russian  philosopher,  and  it  was  from  there  I 
took  Wilfrid  Baillon  to  the  hospital.  Baillon  was  a 
very  handsome  cow-boy  from  British  Columbia,  and 
was  housed  in  Papeete  with  a  giant  Scandinavian  who 
owned  a  cattle  ranch  in  South  America.  He  was  gen- 
erally called  the  Great  Dane,  and  was  the  person  meant 
in  the  charge  for  three  cocktails  at  Lovaina's :  "Germani 
to  Fany,  3  feathers." 

The  cow-boy  became  ill.  I  prescribed  castor-oil,  and 
Mme.  Fanny,  half  a  tumbler  of  Martinique  rum,  with 
the  juice  of  a  lime  in  it.  She  was  famous  for  this  rem- 
edy for  all  internal  troubles,  and  I  took  one  with  the  cow- 
boy as  a  prophylactic,  as  I  might  have  been  exposed  to 
the  same  germs.  He  did  not  improve,  though  he  fol- 
lowed Fanny's  regimen  exactly.  He  was  sitting  de- 
jectedly in  the  pare,  looking  pale  and  thin,  when  I 
broached  the  subject. 

"As  the  Fanny  physic  fails  to  straighten  you  out,"  I 
said  to  him,  "why  not  try  the  hospital?" 

He  recoiled. 

"Have  you  ever  lamped  it?"  he  asked.  "It  looks  like 
a  calaboose." 

"It  ain't  so  bad,"  said  Kelly,  the  I.W.W.,  who  was 
proselyting  as  usual  among  the  flotsam  and  jetsam  of 
the  waterfront.  "I  Ve  been  in  worse  joints  in  the 
United  States." 

The  cow-boy  yielding,  I  escorted  him  to  the  institu- 
tion, carrying  his  bag,  as  what  with  his  disease  and  his 


252  MYSTIC  ISLES 

antidote  he  was  weak.  The  hospital  was  a  block  away 
from  the  lagoon.  It  was  surrounded  by  a  high  stone 
wall,  and  as  it  was  built  by  the  military,  it  was  ugly  and 
had  the  ridiculous  effrontery  of  the  army  and  all  its  lack 
of  common  sense.  The  iron  gate  was  shut,  and  a  sign 
said,  "Sonnez  sJil  vous  plait!"  A  toothless  French  por- 
tiere of  thirty  years  let  us  in.  All  the  doctors  of  Tahiti 
had  left  the  island  for  a  few  days  on  an  excursion,  and 
the  gay  scientist  who  opened  the  champagne  in  his 
pockets  at  the  Tiare  Hotel  New  Year's  eve  was  in 
command.  He  sat  in  an  arm-chair  in  a  littered  office 
and  was  smoking  a  pipe.  His  beard  had  a  diameter  of 
a  foot,  and  obviated  any  need  of  collar  or  shirt-band,  for 
it  grew  from  his  shoulder-blades  up,  so  that  his  fore- 
head, eyes,  nose,  and  lips  were  white  islands  in  a  black 
sea,  and  even  his  nose  was  not  bare,  for  he  had  been 
debited  by  Lovaina  for  his  champagne  as  "Hair  on 
nose." 

He  was  reading  a  novel,  and  asked  gruffly  what  we 
were  there  for.  I  told  him,  and  Baillon  was  assigned 
a  room  at  twelve  francs  a  day,  and  was  required  to  pay 
for  ten  days  in  advance. 

The  next  morning  I  visited  him.  He  could  speak  no 
French,  so  I  questioned  Blackbeard  in  his  office,  where 
we  had  an  aperitif.  He  was  voluble. 

"He  has  amoeban  dysentery,"  said  he.  "It  is  con- 
tagious and  infectious,  specifically,  and  it  is  fortunate 
your  friend  is  attended  by  me.  I  have  had  that  disease 
and  know  what 's  what." 

I,  too,  had  had  it  in  the  Philippine  Islands,  and  I  was 
amazed  that  it  was  infectious.  How  could  he  have  got 
•M 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  253 

"Alors"  replied  the  physician,  "where  has  he  taken 
meals?" 

"Lovaina's,  Fanny's,  and  some  with  the  Chinese." 

The  Frenchman  threw  his  arms  around  the  door  in 
mock  horror.  He  gagged  and  spat,  exciting  the  cow- 
boy into  a  fever. 

"Oh!  la!  la!"  he  shouted.  "Les  Chinois!  Certaine- 
ment,  he  is  ill.  He  has  eaten  dog.  Amoeban  dysen- 
tery! Mais,  monsieur,  it  is  a  dispensation  of  the  bon 
dieu  that  he  has  not  hydrophobia  or  the  leprosy.  Les 
Chinois!  Sacre  nom  de  chien!" 

Lovaina  had  often  accused  her  rivals,  the  Chinese 
restaurateurs,  of  serving  dog  meat  for  beef  or  lamb. 
Perhaps  it  was  so,  for  in  China  more  than  five  millions 
of  dogs  are  sold  for  food  in  the  market  every  year,  and 
in  Tahiti  I  knew  that  the  Chinese  ate  the  larva?  of  wasps, 
and  M.  Martin  had  mountain  rats  caught  for  his  table. 

The  cow-boy's  room  was  bare  and  cheerless,  but  two 
Tahitian  girls  of  fourteen  or  fifteen  years  of  age  were 
in  it.  One  was  sitting  on  his  bed,  holding  his  hand, 
and  the  other  was  in  a  rocking-chair.  They  were  very 
pretty  and  were  dressed  in  their  fete  gowns.  The  girl 
on  the  bed  was  almost  wrhite,  but  her  sister  fairly  brown. 
Probably  they  had  different  fathers.  They  told  me 
that  they  had  seen  Baillon  on  the  streets,  had  fallen  in 
love  with  him,  and  though  they  had  never  spoken  to  him, 
wanted  to  comfort  him  now  that  he  was  sick.  Jealousy 
did  not  rankle  in  their  hearts,  apparently.  That  ab- 
sence often  shocked  non-Polynesians.  Brothers  shared 
wives,  and  sisters  shared  husbands  all  over  old  Poly- 
nesia. 

This  pair  of  love-lorn  maidens  had  never  exchanged 


254  MYSTIC  ISLES 

a  word  with  Baillon,  for  he  spoke  only  English.  The 
whiter  girl  wore  a  delicate  satin  gown,  a  red  ribbon,  and 
fine  pearls  in  her  hair.  The  cow-boy  lay  quietly,  while 
she  sat  with  her  bare  feet  curled  under  her  on  the  coun- 
terpane, looking  actually  unutterable  passion. 

"Shucks!"  said  he  to  me,  safe  in  their  ignorance  of  his 
tongue,  "this  is  getting  serious.  They  mean  business, 
and  I  was  foolin'.  I  got  a  little  girl  in  the  good  ol' 
United  States  that  would  skin  her  alive  if  she  saw  her 
sittin'  like  that  on  my  sheets.  A  man  's  takin'  chances 
here  that  bats  his  eye  at  one  o'  these  T'itian  fairies.  Do 
you  know,  their  mother  came  here  with  them  this  morn- 
ing?" 

"They  mean  to  have  you  in  their  family,"  I  said. 
"That  mother  may  have  had  a  white  husband  or  lover, 
and  aids  in  the  pursuit  of  you  for  auld  lang  syne." 

Wilfrid  Baillon  was  out  of  the  hospital  in  just  ten 
davs.  His  release,  as  cured  bv  the  doctor,  coincided 

*  * 

curiously  with  his  payment  in  advance.  I  saw  him  off 
for  Xew  Zealand  by  the  steamship  leaving  the  next  day. 

"Those  people  were  awful  good  to  me,"  he  said  in 
farewell.  "It  hurts  me  to  treat  those  girls  this  way,  but 
I  'm  scairt  o'  them.  They  're  too  strong  in  their  feel- 
ings." 

He  ran  away  from  a  mess  of  love  pottage  that  many 
men  would  have  gone  across  seas  to  gain. 

Ormsby,  an  Englishman  in  his  early  twenties,  good- 
looking  and  courteous,  with  an  air  of  accustomedness 
to  luxury,  but  of  being  roughened  by  his  environment, 
was  sitting  on  a  bench  one  morning  with  a  girl.  He 
called  me  over  to  meet  her. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  255^ 

"You  are  an  old-timer  here  now,"  he  began,  "and 
I  Ve  got  to  go  away  on  the  schooner  to  the  Paumotus 
to-morrow.  Drop  in  at  Tahia's  shack  once  in  a  while 
and  cheer  her  up.  She  lives  back  of  the  Catholic  mis- 
sion, and  she  's  pretty  sick." 

Tahia  was  desperately  ill,  I  thought.  She  was  thin, 
the  color  of  the  yellow  wax  candles  of  the  high  altar, 
and  her  straight  nose,  with  expanded  nostrils,  and  hard, 
almost  savage  mouth,  features  carved  as  with  the  stone 
chisel  of  her  ancient  tribe,  conjured  up  the  profile  of 
Nenehofra,  an  Egyptian  princess  whose  mummy  I  had 
seen.  She  was  stern,  silent,  resigned  to  her  fate,  as  are 
these  races  who  know  the  inexorable  will  of  the  gods. 

"Is  she  your  girl?"  I  asked  Ormsby. 

He  colored  slightly. 

"I  suppose  so,  and  the  baby  will  be  mine  if  it 's  ever 
born.  At  any  rate,  I  'm  going  to  stick  to  her  while 
she  's  in  this  fix.  I  '11  tell  you  on  the  square,  I  'm  not 
gone  on  her ;  but  she  had  a  lover,  an  Australian  I  knew, 
and  he  was  good  to  her,  but  he  got  the  consumption  and 
could  n't  work.  Maybe  he  came  here  with  it.  They 
had  n't  a  shilling,  and  Tahia  built  a  hut  in  the  hills  up 
there  near  where  the  nature  men  live,  and  put  him  in  it, 
and  she  fed  and  cared  for  him.  She  went  to  the  moun- 
tains for  feis,  she  came  down  here  to  the  reef  to  fish,  and 
she  found  eggs  and  breadfruit  in  other  people's  gardens. 
She  kept  him  alive,  the  Lord  knows  how,  until  he  could 
secure  money  from  Sydney  to  go  home  and  die.  Now, 
she  's  got  the  con  from  him,  I  suppose,  and  it  would  be  a 
shabby  trick  to  leave  her  when  she  's  dying  and  will  be 
a  mother  in  two  months,  according  to  Doctor  Cassiou !" 


256  MYSTIC  ISLES 

He  made  a  wry  face  and  lit  his  pipe.  The  girl  could 
not  understand  a  word  and  sat  immovable. 

"She  's  Marquesan,"  he  went  on.  "Her  mother  has 
written  through  a  trader  in  Atuona,  on  Hiva-Oa,  to 
send  her  to  her  own  valley,  but  she  's  quit.  She  sits  and 
broods  all  day.  I  'd  like  to  go  back  to  my  own  home  in 
Warwickshire.  I  know  I  'm  changing  for  the  bad  here. 
I  live  like  a  dam'  beach-comber.  I  only  get  a  screw  of 
three  hundred  francs  a  month,  and  that  all  goes  for  us 
two,  with  medicines  and  doctors.  She  'd  go  to  Atuona 
if  I  'd  go ;  but  I  can't  make  a  living  there,  and  I  'm  rot- 
ten enough  now  without  living  off  her  people  in  the 
cannibal  group.  She  's  skin  and  bones  and  coughs  all 
night." 

Ormsby  puffed  his  pipe  as  Tahia  put  her  hand  in  his. 
Her  action  was  that  of  a  small  dog  who  puts  his  paw  on 
his  master's  sleeve,  hesitating,  hopeful,  but  uncertain. 
She  regarded  me  with  slightly  veiled  hostility.  I  was 
a  white  who  might  be  taking  him  away  to  foreign  things. 

"She  's  heard  us  talking  about  Atuona  and  Hiva-Oa, 
and  she  thinks  maybe  I  've  concluded  to  go.  I  can't  do 
it,  O'Brien.  If  I  go  there,  I  '11  go  native  forever.  I  Ve 
got  a  streak  of  some  dam'  savage  in  me.  Listen!  I  've 
got  to  go  on  the  Etoile  to  Kaukura  to-morrow.  Now, 
the  natives  are  always  kind  to  any  one,  but  sickness  they 
are  not  interested  in.  You  go  and  see  her,  won't  you? 
She  's  about  all  in,  and  it  won't  hurt  you." 

Ormsby  went  to  the  Dangerous  Isles  on  the  Etoile, 
and  did  not  return  for  three  weeks.  He  did  not  find 
Tahia  in  her  shack  on  the  hill.  She  was  in  the  cemetery, 
— in  the  plot  reserved  for  the  natives  of  other  islands, 
— and  her  babe  unborn.  She  had  died  alone.  I  think 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  257 

she  made  up  her  mind  to  relieve  the  Englishman  of  her 
care,  and  willed  to  die  at  once.  Dr.  Cassiou,  with  whom 
I  visited  her,  said: 

"She  ought  to  have  lasted  several  months.  Mais, 
c'est  curieux.  I  have  treated  these  Polynesians  for 
many  years,  and  I  never  found  one  I  could  keep  alive 
when  he  wanted  to  die.  She  had  already  sent  away  her 
spirit,  the  dine,  or  essence  vitale,  or  whatever  it  is,  and 
then  the  body  simply  grows  cold." 

Ormsby  and  I  talked  it  all  over  in  the  pare.  He  was 
deeply  affected,  and  he  uncovered  his  own  soul,  as  men 
seldom  do. 

"I  'm  dam'  glad  she  's  dead,"  he  said,  with  intense 
feeling.  "I  might  have  failed,  and  she  died  before  I  did 
fail.  I  'm  going  back  to  Warwick  now  at  first  chance, 
and  whatever  I  do  or  don't  do,  I  've  got  that  exception 
to  my  credit.  It 's  one,  too,  to  the  credit  of  the  whites 
that  have  cursed  these  poor  islanders." 

He  had  chalked  it  down  on  a  record  he  thought  quite 
black,  but  which  I  believe  was  better  than  our  average. 
He  and  I  went  to  the  cemetery  and  had  a  wooden  slab 
put  up : 

Tahia  a  Atuona 
Tamau  te  maitai. 

Tahia  of  Atuona 
She  held  fast. 

The  Christchurch  Kid  and  I  were  friendly,  and  he 
allowed  me  once  a  day  during  his  training  periods  to  put 
on  the  gloves  with  him  for  a  mild  four  rounds.  He  was 
an  open-hearted  fellow,  with  a  cauliflower  ear  and  a 
nose  a  trifle  awry  from  "a  couple  of  years  with  the  pork- 
and-beaners  in  California,"  as  he  explained,  but  with 


258  MYSTIC  ISLES 

a  magnificent  body.  He  also  lived  at  the  Annexe,  and 
did  his  training  in  the  garden  under  Afa's  clever  hands. 
The  Dummy  must  have  admired  him,  for  he  would 
watch  him  exercising  and  boxing  for  hours,  and  make 
farcical  sounds  and  grotesque  gestures  to  indicate  his 
understanding  of  the  motions  and  blows. 

The  Kid  asked  me  if  I  knew  Ernest  Darling,  "the  na- 
ture man,"  and  identified  the  too  naked  wearer  of  toga 
and  sandals  on  the  San  Francisco  wharf  as  Darling. 

"  'E  looked  like  Christ,"  said  the  boxer.  "  'E  was  a 
queer  un.  How  'd  you  like  to  chyse  up  there  to  his 
roost  in  the  'ills?" 

The  next  morning  at  five — it  was  not  daybreak  until 
six — we  met  at  Wing  Lucy's  for  coffee  and  bread,  which 
cost  four  cents.  Prince  Hinoe  was  there  as  usual,  and 
asked  us  whither  away.  He  laughed  when  we  told  him, 
and  said  the  nature  men  were  maamaa,  crazy.  The  Kid 
was  of  the  same  mind. 

We  went  up  the  rue  de  Sainte  Amelie  to  the  end  of 
the  road,  and  continued  on  up  the  valley.  We  could  see 
far  above  us  a  small  structure,  which  was  the  Eden  that 
Darling  had  made  for  the  Adamic  colony  he  had  estab- 
lished. 

The  climb  was  a  stiff  one  on  a  mere  wild  pig-trail. 

"The  nyture  man  would  'ike  up  'ere  several  times  a 
day,  after  the  frogs  closed  his  road,"  said  the  New  Zea- 
lander.  "There  was  less  brush  than  now,  though,  be- 
cause 'e  cut  it  aw'y  to  carry  lumber  and  things  up  and 
to  bring  back  the  things  'e  grew  for  market.  'E  and 
'is  gang  believed  in  nykedness,  vegetables,  socialism,  no 
religion,  and  no  drugs.  The  nytives  think  they  're  bug- 
'ouse,  like  Prince  Hinoe,  and  I  don't  think  they  're  all 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  259 

there,  but  you  could  n't  cheat  him.  'E  'd  myke  a  Glas- 
gow peddler  look  sharp  in  buyin'  or  sellin'." 

The  Christchurch  Kid  was  himself  strictly  conven- 
tional, and  had  been  genuinely  shocked  by  Darling's 
practices,  and  especially  by  his  striking  resemblance  to 
the  Master  as  portrayed  by  the  early  painters,  and  by 
Munkacsy  in  Christ  Before  Pilate. 

"  'E  was  all  right,"  he  explained  to  me  as  we  climbed, 
"but  'e  ought  to  been  careful  of  'is  looks.  I  was  'ard  up 
'ere  in  Papeete  once,  and  was  sleepin'  in  an  ole  ware'ouse 
along  with  others.  Darling  slept  on  a  window-sill,  and 
'e  used  to  talk  about  enjoyin'  the  full  sweep  o'  the  trade- 
wind.  We  doubted  that,  an'  so  one  night  we  crept  up\ 
stairs  and  surprised  him.  'E  was  stretched  out  on  a 
couple  o'  sacks,  and  a  reg'ler  gale  was  blowin'  on  him. 
'E  bathed  a  couple  o'  times  a  day  in  the  lagoon  or  in 
fresh  water,  but  'e  believed  in  rubbin'  oil  on  his  skin,  and 
when  a  bloke  is  all  greasy  and  nyked,  'e  looks  dirty.  'Is 
whiskers  were  too  flossy  in  the  tropics." 

It  took  all  my  wind  to  reach  the  Eden,  a  couple  of 
miles  from  our  starting-point,  and  we  were  on  all  fours 
part  of  the  way. 

"  'E  could  run  up  here  like  an  animal,"  declared  the 
fighter.  "Once  when  a  crowd  of  us  went  to  visit  'im,  'e 
ran  up  this  tr'il  a'ead  of  us,  and  when  we  arrived  all 
winded,  blow  me  up  a  bloomin'  gum-tree  if  'e  'ad  n't  a 
mess  of  feis  and  breadfruit  cooked  for  us." 

We  came  to  a  sign  on  the  trail.  "Tapu,"  it  said, 
which  means  taboo,  or  keep  away;  and  farther  on  a 
notice  in  French  that  the  owner  forbade  any  one  to 
enter  upon  his  land. 

"  'E  's  a  cryzy  Frenchman  with  long  whiskers,"  said 


260  MYSTIC  ISLES 

the  Kid.  '  'E  'as  a  grudge  against  any  one  who  speaks 
English  and  also  against  the  world.  They  s'y  that  'is 
American  wife  ran  aw'y  from  'im,  or  an  American  took 
'is  nytive  wife  aw'y.  'E  packs  a  revolver." 

Everywhere  the  mountain-side  was  terraced,  and 
planted  in  cocoanuts,  breadfruits,  bananas,  flowers,  and 
other  plants,  more  than  two  thousand  growths.  Dar- 
ling's toil  had  been  great,  and  my  heart  bled  at  the 
memory  of  his  standing  on  the  piling  as  we  steamed 
away.  He  had  intended  to  have  a  colony,  with  bare 
nature-worshipers  from  all  over  the  wrorld.  He  had 
written  articles  in  magazines,  and  tourists  and  authors 
had  celebrated  him  in  their  stories.  A  score  of  needy 
health-seekers  had  arrived  in  Papeete  and  joined  him, 
but  could  not  survive  his  rigid  diet  and  work.  He  had 
talked  much  of  Eves,  white,  in  the  Eden,  but  none  had 
offered. 

On  a  platform  fifteen  hundred  feet  above  the  sea 
Darling  had  built  a  frame  of  beams,  boards,  and 
branches,  with  bunks  and  seats,  much  like  a  woodcut- 
ter's temporary  shelter  in  the  mountains,  a  mere  lean- 
to.  The  view  was  stupendous,  with  the  sea,  the  harbor, 
Moorea,  and  Papeete  hardly  seen  in  the  foliage.  He 
had  thought  his  work  in  life  to  be  peopling  these  hills 
with  big  families  of  nature  children  and  the  spread  of 
socialism  and  reformed  spelling. 

His  dream  was  transient.  He  had  been  treated  with 
contempt,  and  had  been  driven  from  his  garden,  as  had 
his  first  father,  and  without  an  Eve  or  a  serpent.  The 
whiskered  Frenchman  had  bought  Eden  for  <i  song,  and 
had  made  it  taboo  to  all. 

We    shouted    in    vain    for   the    Frenchman,    so   we 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  261 

searched  the  premises.  The  boxer  was  afraid  that  after 
we  left  he  might  roll  a  rock  down  our  trail  because  of 
our  breaking  his  taboo.  We  found  the  spring  from 
which  he  drank,  and  a  pool  dug  by  Darling  for  bathing, 
now  only  a  mass  of  vegetation.  Evidently  the  present 
tenant  was  not  an  ablutionist. 

"There  's  a  beastly  German  down  on  that  next  level," 
remarked  the  Christchurch  Kid.  *  'E  'ates  this  French- 
man. Now  they  don't  speak,  but  they  sent  warnin'  to 
each  other  o'  trouble.  The  frog  carries  the  revolver  for 
the  sauer-kraut.  Some  day  they  '11  kill  each  other  right 
'ere.  They  're  both  'ermits,  and  'ermits  are  terrible 
when  they  get  excited." 

It  was  almost  a  straight  drop  to  the  German's,  a  small 
promontory,  with  an  acre  of  land,  a  platform  raised 
eight  feet  on  poles  for  a  roof,  and  under  it  a  berth.  A 
chest  held  his  belongings.  He  lived  on  the  fruit  he 
raised  and  the  fish  he  caught  in  the  sea,  to  which  he  went 
every  day.  He  tried  to  keep  chickens,  but  the  moun- 
tain rats,  of  which  Darling  had  trapped  more  than  five 
thousand,  ate  most  of  them.  The  German,  too,  was 
away  from  his  simple  home.  Both  these  men  sought  in 
life  only  peace  and  plain  living,  yet  were  consumed  with 
hate.  One  day  the  upper  dweller  had  accidentally 
caused  a  small  stone  to  roll  down  upon  the  other's  roof. 
The  German  had  shouted  something  to  the  Frenchman, 
hot  words  had  passed,  and  now  they  carried  revolvers 
to  intimidate  or  shoot  each  other.  Their  days  and 
nights  were  spent  on  plans  to  insult  or  injure.  And 
because  of  their  feud  they  hated  the  whole  world. 

Once  again  in  Papeete,  we  met  the  Swiss  of  the  Noa- 
Noa  who  had  intended  to  eat  raw  foods  in  the  Mar- 


262  MYSTIC  ISLES 

quesas.     He  was  to  return  to  America  on  the  next 
steamer. 

"De  wegetables  in  Tahiti  have  no  wim  in  dem,"  he 
said.  "In  California  I  ead  nudds  und  raisins  mit 
shtrent'  in  dem.  I  go  back." 

The  fighter  pointed  out  the  "cryzy"  Frenchman  of 
Eden.  He  was  the  customs  employee  who  had  pro- 
voked the  American  consul  by  refusing  to  understand 
English. 

I  asked*  M.  Lontane,  the  second  in  command  of  the 
police,  why  Darling  had  gone. 

The  hero  of  the  battle  of  the  limes,  coal,  and  potatoes, 
looked  at  me  fiercely. 

"Is  the  French  republic  to  permit  here  in  its  colony 
the  whites  who  enjoy  its  hospitality  to  shame  the  nation 
before  the  Tahitians  by  their  nakedness?  That  sacree 
bete  wore  a  pareu  in  town  because  the  law  compelled  him 
to,  but,  monsieur,  on  the  road,  in  his  aerial  resort,  he  and 
all  his  disciples  were  as  naked  as — " 

"I  have  seen  artistes  at  the  music-halls  of  Paris,"  I 
finished. 

"Exactement,"  he  spluttered.  "Are  we  to  let  Tahiti 
rival  Paris?" 

Ivan  Stroganoff  I  met  two  or  three  times  a  month. 
He  stayed  in  his  chicken-coop  except  when  the  oppor- 
tunities came  for  gaining  a  few  francs,  at  steamer-time, 
and  when  sheer  boredom  drove  him  to  Papeete  for  con- 
verse. With  his  dislike  for  the  natives  and  his  disdain- 
ful attitude  toward  the  French,  he  had  to  seek  other  na- 
tionals in  town,  for  there  were  none  at  Fa'a  except  a 
Chinese  storekeeper.  Stroganoff  at  eighty  was  as  keen 
for  interesting  things  as  a  young  man,  but  his  philoso- 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  263 

phy  was  fatal  to  his  enjoyment.  He  saw  the  flaw  in  the 
diamond  the  sunbeam  made  of  the  drop  of  water  on  the 
leaf.  He  had  lived  too  long  and  was  too  wise  in  disap- 
pointments. He  was  generous  in  his  poverty,  for  he 
brought  me  a  tin  of  guava- jelly  he  had  made  and  a  box 
of  dried  bananas.  These  had  had  their  skins  removed, 
and  were  black  and  not  desirable-looking,  but  they  were 
delicious  and  rare.  In  turn,  not  wishing  to  exaggerate 
the  difference  between  our  means,  I  gave  him  a  box  of 
cigars  I  had  brought  from  America.  I  visited  him  at 
Fa'a,  and  found  his  coop  had  been  a  poultry  shelter, 
and  was  humble,  indeed;  but  I  had  slept  a  hundred 
nights  in  many  countries  in  worse.  He  had  a  box  for  a 
table  for  eating  and  writing,  and  a  rude  cot.  A  few 
dishes  and  implements,  and  a  roost  of  books  and  reviews 
in  Russian,  English,  French,  German,  and  other  lan- 
guages, completed  his  equipment. 

He  had  several  times  reiterated  his  earnest  wish  to 
leave  Tahiti,  and  his  longing  rested  heavily  on  my  heart. 
Upon  lying  down  at  night  I  had  felt  my  own  illiberality 
in  not  making  it  possible  for  him  to  realize  his  desire. 
A  hundred  dollars  would  send  him  there,  with  enough 
left  over  for  a  fortnight's  keep.  But  my  apology  for 
not  buying  him  a  ticket  was  the  real  fear  of  his  unhappi- 
ness.  What  could  a  friendless  man  of  eighty  do  to  exist 
in  the  United  States  other  than  become  the  inmate  of  a 
poorhouse?  The  best  he  could  hope  for  would  be  to  be 
taken  in  by  the  Little  Sisters  of  the  Poor,  who  house  a 
few  old  men.  They  were,  doubtless,  kind,  but  probably 
insistent  on  neatness  and  religiosity. 

The  cold,  the  brutal  policemen  and  guards,  the  venial 
justice,  the  crystallized  charity  in  the  name  of  a  statis- 


264  MYSTIC  ISLES 

tical  Christ,  arrested  my  hand.  I  had  known  it  all  at 
first  hand,  asking  no  favor.  I  believed  that  he  would  be 
worse  off  than  in  his  chicken-coop.  He  could  wear  any- 
thing or  nearly  nothing  in  Tahiti,  and  his  old  Prince 
Albert  comforted  him;  but  he  would  have  to  conform 
to  dress  rules  in  a  stricter  civilization.  Nature  was  a 
loving  mother  here  and  a  shrewish  hag  there,  at  least 
toward  the  poor.  And  yet  I  was  uneasy  at  my  own 
argument. 

For  a  month  or  two  he  had  led  the  talk  between  us 
and  any  others  in  the  pare  to  new  discoveries  in  medi- 
cine. From  his  Fa'a  seclusion  he  followed  these  very 
closely  through  European  publications,  for  which  his 
slender  funds  went.  He  had  a  curiously  opposed  na- 
ture, quoting  with  enthusiasm  the  idealistic  philoso- 
phers, and  descending  into  such  abject  materialism  as 
haunting  the  bishop's  palace  for  the  cigar-stubs. 

He  would  say  that  the  purest  joy  in  life  is  that  which 
lifts  us  out  of  our  daily  existence  and  transforms  us  into> 
disinterested  spectators  of  it. 

"This  divine  release  from  the  common  ways  of  men* 
can  be  found  only  through  art,"  Stroganoff  would  apos- 
trophize. "The  final  and  only  true  solution  of  life  is  to- 
be  found  in  the  life  of  the  saint.  True  morality  passes 
through  virtue,  which  is  rooted  in  sympathy  into  asceti- 
cism. Renunciation  only  offers  a  complete  release  from 
the  evils  and  terrors  of  existence." 

Kelly  was  on  the  bench  one  day  when  the  Russian 
uttered  this  rule  of  the  cenobite  school.  They  were 
good  friends,  but  differed.  They  agreed  that  the  world 
was  sick  and  needed  a  radical  medicine.  Kelly  was  for 
a  complete  cure  by  ending  private  business  through  the 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  265 

workers  seizing  it  when  the  time  was  ripe,  which  he  be- 
lieved would  be  soon.  Stroganoff  was  for  an  empery  of 
wise  men,  of  scientists,  philosophers,  and  artists,  who 
would  kick  out  the  statesmen  and  politicians,  and  man- 
age things  by  enlightened  pragmatism.  For  the  indi- 
vidual man  who  sought  happiness  his  formula  was  as 
above — retirement  to  an  aery. 

When  Kelly  was  gone  to  practise  on  his  accordion, — • 
he  had  opened  a  dancing  academy  at  Fa'a, — the  octo- 
genarian asked  me  if  I  had  read  of  the  recent  achieve- 
ments of  the  scientists  who  were  making  the  old  young. 
He  elaborated  on  the  discoveries  and  experiments  of 
Professor  Leonard  Huxley  in  England  writh  thyroid 
gland  injections,  of  Voronoff  in  France  with  the  graft- 
ing of  interstitial  glands  of  monkeys,  and  of  Eugen 
Steinach  in  Austria  and  Roux  in  Germany,  with  germ 
glands  and  X-rays.  Steinach,  especially,  he  discoursed 
on,  and  drew  a  magazine  picture  of  him  from  his  Prince 
Albert.  The  Vienna  savant  had  a  cordon  of  whiskers 
that  made  him  resemble  Stroganoff,  and  his  eyes  in  the 
photograph  peered  through  all  one's  disguises. 

"That  is  what  grates  me,"  said  Stroganoff.  "I  am 
far  from  all  these  worth-while  things,  these  men  of 
brain.  I  knew  Ilya  Ilich  Metchnikoff  before  he  became 
director  of  the  Pasteur  Institute.  Here  I  am  a  rotting 
hulk.  In  the  Caucasus  I  had  kephir,  and  I  used  to 
carry  kephir  grains,  and  in  America  I,  at  least,  could 
have  kumiss  or  Ilya  Ilich's  loit  cattle.  Look!  I  came 
here  as  Ponce  de  Leon  to  Florida  to  find  youth,  or  to 
keep  from  growing  older;  in  a  word  to  escape  anno 
Domini.1' 

I  turned  and  looked  at  him.     He  was  a  venerable  fig- 


266  MYSTIC  ISLES 

ure,  but  there  was  no  sign  of  eighty  years  in  him.  Rid 
of  that  white,  hirsute  mask,  so  associated  with  age,  Stro- 
ganoff  might  have  been  twenty  years  younger.  I  said 
so,  but  it  did  not  allay  his  yearning. 

"I  am  well  enough,"  he  said,  "because  I  have  not  dis- 
sipated for  thirty  years.  I  turned  a  leaf,  as  did  Leo 
Nikolaievitch,  after  'War  and  Peace.'  Now  I  feel 
myself  slipping  into  the  grave." 

He  gazed  ruminantly  away  from  the  lagoon  to  the 
pool  of  Psyche,  where  the  Tahitian  women  squatted  on 
their  shapely  haunches  and  thumped  their  clothes. 

"See,"  he  said  earnestly.  "I  am  old  and  useless. 
Why  should  not  Steinach  or  the  others  make  the  grand 
experiment  on  me?  If  they  succeed,  very  good;  if  they 
fail,  there  is  no  loss.  They  say  those  glands  make  a 
man  over,  no  matter  what  his  age.  I  offer  myself 
freely.  I  am  not  afraid  of  death.  Me,  I  am  a  philoso- 
pher." 

He  spoke  excitedly.  His  eyes  were  fixed  on  distance, 
and  I  followed  them. 

Auro,  the  Golden  One,  as  her  name  meant,  had  been 
washing  her  muslin  slips  in  the  pool  of  Psyche,  and  now 
stood  in  the  entrance  to  it.  She  was  for  a  fleeting  sec- 
ond in  her  pareu  only,  her  tunic  raised  above  her  head  to 
pull  on,  and  her  enravishing  form  disclosed  from  her 
waist  to  her  piquant  face,  over  which  tumbled  her  opu- 
lent locks. 

It  flashed  on  me  that,  wise  and  old  as  he  was,  the 
spectrum  of  the  philosopher's  soul  had  all  the  colors  of 
the  ignorant  and  the  young.  I  looked  from  the  nymphs 
of  the  pool  to  his  darkening  eyes,  and  I  had  a  revelation 
of  the  persistence  of  common  humanity  in  the  most 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  267 

learned  and  the  most  philosophical.  My  castigation  of 
myself  for  not  buying  his  steamship  ticket  ceased  in  a 
moment,  though  not  the  less  did  I  continue  to  enjoy  his 
fount  of  learning  and  experience. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

The  market  in  Papeete — Coffee  at  Shin  Bung  Lung's  with  a  prince — Fish 
the  chief  item — Description  of  them — The  vegetables  and  fruits — The 
fish  strike — Rumors  of  an  uprising — Kelly  and  the  I.  W.  W. — The  mys- 
terious session  at  Fa' a — Halellujah!  I 'm  a  Bum! — The  strike  is  broken. 

THE  market  in  Papeete,  the  only  one  in  Tahiti, 
has  an  air  all  its  own.  It  is  different  in  its 
amateur  atmosphere  and  roseate  color,  in  its 
isothermal  romance  and  sheer  good  humor,  from  all 
others  I  have  seen — Port  of  Spain,  Peking,  Kandy,  or 
Jolo.  It  is  more  fascinating  in  its  sensuous,  tropical 
setting,  its  strange  foods,  and  its  laughing,  lazy  crowds 
of  handsome  people,  than  any  other  public  mart  I  know. 
There  is  no  financial  exchange  in  Tahiti.  Stocks  and 
bonds  take  the  shape  of  cocoanuts,  vanilla-beans,  fish, 
and  other  comforts.  The  brokers  are  merry  women. 
The  market  is  spot,  and  buyers  must  take  delivery  im- 
mediately, as  usually  not  a  single  security  is  left  at  the 
end  of  the  day's  trading. 

One  must  be  at  the  market  before  five  o'clock  to  see 
it  all.  Sunday  is  the  choicest  day  of  all  the  week,  be- 
cause Sunday  is  a  day  of  feasting,  and  the  mar  die  then 
has  a  more  than  gala  air.  The  English  missionaries  had 
once  made  even  cooking  a  fish  on  Sunday  a  crime,  se- 
verely punished;  but  the  French  priests  changed  all 
that,  and  the  French  Sabbath,  the  Xew  York  Sabbath, 
was  en  regie. 

All  the  east  is  purple  and  red,  gorgeous,   flaring, 

268 


MYSTIC  ISLES  269 

when  I  awake.  There  are  no  windows  in  my  connect- 
ing rooms  in  the  Annexe.  The  sun  rises  through  their 
wallless  front,  and  sets  through  their  opening  to  the  bal- 
cony. What  more  liberal  dispensation  of  nature?  I 
am  under  the  shower  in  two  minutes,  long  enough  to  go 
down  the  curved  staircase,  with  its  admirable  rosewood 
balustrade,  and  through  the  rear  veranda  to  the  room  in 
which  the  large  cement  basin  serves  for  bath  and  laun- 
dry and  to  lend  a  minute  to  the  Christchurch  Kid,  the 
prize-fighter,  to  inform  me  that  he  is  to  open  a  school 
of  the  manly  art,  with  diplomas  for  finished  scholars  and 
rewards  for  excellence.  The  recitals  are  to  be  public,  a 
fee  charged,  and  all  ambitious  pupils  are  to  be  guaran- 
teed open  examination  in  pairs  and  a  just  decision. 
The  Kid  and  Cowan  are  to  be  hors  de  combat. 

A  daughter  of  a  French  governor  of  the  Low  Archi- 
pelago is  in  the  basin,  the  door  ajar,  and  the  spray  blind- 
ing her  to  my  presence.  She  is  seventeen,  cafe  au  lait — 
beaucoup  de  lait,  kohl-eyed,  meter-tressed,  and  slim- 
bodied.  She  sings  the  himene  of  the  battle  of  the  limes 
and  coal  and  potatoes,  with  a  new  stanza  concerning  the 
return  of  the  Noa-Noa,  and  the  vengeance  of  the  Tahi- 
tian  braves  upon  the  pigs  of  Peretania,  Britain. 

"la  ora  na!  Bonjour,  Goo'  night!"  she  says  impar- 
tially, and  modestly  slips  her  pareu  about  her. 

"la  ora  na  oe!"  I  reply.     "AU  goes  well?" 

"By  cripe'  yais;  dam'  goo'!"  she  answers,  and  goes 
humming  on  her  way  to  her  shanty  in  the  yard.  She 
is  the  maid  of  my  chamber,  gentle,  willing,  but  never  to 
be  found  for  service.  She  learns  English  from  the  Kid, 
the  rubber-legged  boot-black,  and  other  gentleman  ad- 
venturers and  tars  of  America  and  Europe,  and  she 


270  MYSTIC  ISLES 

pours  out  bad  words — I  cannot  mention  them — in  in- 
nocent faith  in  their  propriety.  In  French  or  Tahitian 
she  speaks  correctly. 

Outside  the  bath  I  hear  the  vehicles  hurrying  to 
market,  and  dressing  quickly  in  white  drill,  and  wear- 
ing on  my  Paumotu  hat  a  brilliant  scarlet  pugaree,  once 
the  badge  of  subjugation  to  the  Mohammedan  conquer- 
ors of  India,  I  join  the  procession. 

Bon  dieu!  what  a  morning!  The  reds  and  purples 
are  dying  in  the  orient,  and  the  hills  are  swathed  in  the 
half-white  light  of  day.  The  lagoon  is  now  a  glistening 
pearly  gray.  Moorea,  the  isle  of  the  fairy  folk,  is 
jagged  and  rough,  as  if  a  new  throe  of  earth  had  torn  its 
heights  and  made  new  steeps  and  obelisks.  Moorea  is 
never  the  same.  Every  hour  of  the  day  and  every  smile 
and  frown  of  the  sun  creates  valleys  and  spires,  and  al- 
ters the  outlines  of  this  most  capricious  of  islets. 

Past  the  bust  of  Bougainville,  past  the  offices  of 
Emile  Levy,  the  pearler  whom,  to  Levy's  intense  anger, 
Jack  London  slew  in  "The  House  of  Mapuhi";  past 
the  naval  depot,  the  American  consulate  with  the  red, 
white,  and  blue  flung  in  the  breeze;  the  Commissariat 
de  Police,  the  pool  of  Psyche,  and  all  the  rows  of  schoon- 
ers that  line  the  quays,  with  their  milken  sails  drying  on 
their  masts,  and  I  am  by  the  stores  of  the  merchants. 
The  dawn  is  slipping  through  the  curtain  of  night,  but 
lamps  are  still  burning.  The  traffic  has  roused  the 
sleepers,  and  they  are  dressing.  They  have  brought, 
tied  in  pareus,  their  Sunday  clothes.  Women  are 
changing  gowns,  and  men  struggle  with  shirts  and 
trousers,  awkward  inflictions  upon  their  ordinarily  free 
bodies. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  271 

All  the  night  people  who  have  journeyed  from  Pa- 
para,  from  Papenoo,  or  nearer  districts  slumber  upon 
the  sidewalks.  This  sleeping  about  anywhere  is  char- 
acteristic of  the  Tahitian.  On  the  quays,  in  the  door- 
ways of  the  large  and  small  stores,  in  carriages,  and  on 
the  decks  of  the  vessels,  men  and  women  and  children 
lie  or  crouch,  sleeping  peacefully,  with  their  possessions 
near  them. 

In  the  fare  tamaaraa,  the  coffee-houses  of  the  Tin- 
itos,  the  Chinese,  the  venders  of  provender  and  the 
marketers  alike  are  slipping  their  taofe  tau,  their  four- 
sous'  worth  of  coffee,  with  a  tiny  pewter  mug  of  canned 
milk,  sugar,  and  a  half -loaf  of  French  bread  with  butter. 

My  vis-a-vis  at  Shin  Bung  Lung's  is  Prince  Hinoe, 
the  heir  to  the  broken  throne,  a  very  large,  smiling  brown 
gentleman,  who  sits  with  the  French  secretary  of  the 
governor,  the  two,  alack!  patting  the  shoulders,  pinch- 
ing the  cheeks,  and  fondling  the  long,  ebon  plaits  of  the 
bevy  of  beauties  who  are  up  thus  early  to  flirt  and  make 
merry.  Tahiti  is  the  most  joyous  land  upon  the  globe. 
Who  takes  life  seriously  here  is  a  fool  or  a  liver-ridden 
penitent.  The  shop  is  full  of  peals  of  laughter  and 
stolen  kisses.  Those  sons  of  Belial  who  taught  the 
daughter  of  the  governor  of  the  Dangerous  Isles  her 
unspeakable  vocabulary  are  here.  They  have  been  to 
the  Paris,  the  premier  saloon  of  Papeete,  for  their  morn- 
ing's morning,  an  absinthe,  or  a  hair  of  the  dog  that  bit 
them  yester  eve. 

What  jokes  they  have!  Stories  of  what  happened 
last  night  in  the  tap-room  of  the  cinematograph,  how 
David  opened  a  dozen  bottles  of  Roederer,  and  there 
was  no  ice,  so  all  alike,  barefooted  and  silk-stockinged, 


272  MYSTIC  ISLES 

drank  the  wine  of  Champagne  warm,  and  out  of  beer 
glasses;  of  Captain  Minne's  statement  that  he  would 
kill  a  scion  of  Tahitian  royalty  (not  Hinoe)  if  he  did 
not  marry  his  daughter  before  the  captain  returned  from 
the  Paumotus;  and  of  Count  Polonsky's  calling  down 
the  black  procureur,  the  attorney-general,  right  in  the 
same  tap-room,  and  telling  him  he  was  a  "nigger,"  al- 
though they  had  been  friends  before. 

Tahitian  and  French  and  English,  but  very  little  of 
the  latter,  echoes  through  the  coffee-room.  Even  I 
make  a  feeble  struggle  to  speak  the  native  tongue,  and 
arouse  storms  of  giggles. 

The  market-place  faces  the  Maine,  the  city  hall,  and 
its  center  is  a  fountain  beloved  of  youth.  There  sit  or 
loll  the  maidens  of  Papeete  at  night,  and  titter  as  pass 
the  sighing  lads.  There  wait  the  automobiles  to  carry 
the  pleasure  bent  to  Kelly's  grove  at  Fa'a,  where  the 
maxixe  and  the  tango  rage,  the  hula-dancers  quiver  and 
quaver,  and  wassail  has  no  bounds. 

When  the  whites  are  at  dinner,  the  natives  meet  in 
the  market-place,  which  is  the  agora,  as  the  place  du 
gouvernment  is  the  forum  of  the  dance  and  music  of 
these  ocean  Greeks. 

But  at  this  hour  it  is  wreathed  with  women,  scores 
squat  upon  their  mats  on  the  pave,  their  goods  spread 
before  the  eyes  of  the  purchasers. 

The  sellers  of  the  materials  for  hats  are  many.  The 
bamboo  fiber,  yellowish  white,  is  the  choicest,  but  there 
are  other  colors  and  stuffs.  The  women  venders  smoke 
cigarettes  and  are  always  laughing.  Old  crones,  with- 
ered and  feeble,  shake  their  thin  sides  at  their  own  and 
others'  jokes. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  273 

Already  the  buyers  are  coming  fast,  householders  and 
cooks  and  bachelors  and  beaux,  tourists  and  native 
beauties. 

A  score  of  groups  are  smoking  and  chatting,  flirting 
and  running  over  their  lists.  Carriages  and  carts  are 
tied  everywhere,  country  folk  who  have  come  to  sell  or  to 
buy,  or  both,  and  automobiles,  too,  are  ranged  beside 
the  Mairie. 

Matrons  and  daughters,  many  nationals,  are  assem- 
bling. The  wife  of  a  new  consul,  a  charming  blonde, 
just  from  New  Jersey,  has  her  basket  on  her  arm.  She 
is  a  bride,  and  must  make  the  consul's  two  thousand 
dollars  a  year  go  far.  A  priest  in  a  black  gown  and  a 
young  Mormon  elder  from  Utah  regard  each  other 
coldly.  A  hundred  Chinese  cafe-keepers,  stewards,  and 
merchants  are  endeavoring  to  pierce  the  exteriors  of  the 
foods  and  estimate  their  true  value.  The  market  is  not 
open  yet.  It  awaits  the  sound  of  the  gong,  rung  by 
the  police  about  half  past  five.  Four  or  five  of  these 
officials  are  about,  all  natives  in  gaudy  uniforms,  their 
bicycles  at  the  curb,  smoking,  and  exchanging  greetings 
with  friends. 

The  question  of  deepest  interest  to  the  marketers  is 
the  fish.  The  tables  for  these  are  railed  off,  and,  peer- 
ing through  the  barriers,  the  onlookers  comment  upon 
the  kinds  and  guess  at  the  prices. 

The  market-house  is  a  shed  over  concrete  floors,  clean, 
sanitary,  and  occupied  but  an  hour  or  two  a  day.  There 
are  three  main  divisions  of  the  market,  meat,  fish,  and 
green  things.  Meat  in  Tahiti  is  better  uneaten  and  un- 
sung. It  comes  on  the  hoof  from  Xew  Zealand.  Xow, 
if  you  are  an  epicure,  you  may  rent  a  cold-storage  cham- 


274  MYSTIC  ISLES 

ber  in  the  glacerie,  and  keep  your  steaks  and  roasts  until 
tender. 

Fish  is  the  chief  item  to  the  Tahitian.  Give  him  only 
fish,  and  he  may  murmur  at  his  fate ;  but  deny  him  fish, 
and  he  will  hie  him  to  the  reef  and  snare  it  for  himself. 
All  night  the  torches  of  the  fishermen  gleam  on  the 
foaming  reef,  and  often  I  paddle  out  near  the  breakers 
and  hear  the  chants  and  cries  of  the  men  as  they  thrust 
their  harpoons  or  draw  their  nets.  So  it  is  the  women 
who  sell  the  fish,  while  the  weary  husbands  and  fathers 
lie  wrapped  in  dreams  of  a  miraculous  draught. 

There  are  three  great  aquariums  in  the  world,  at 
Honolulu,  Naples,  and  Xew  York.  There  is  no  other 
such  fish-market  as  this  of  Papeete,  for  Hawaii's  has 
become  Asiaticized,  and  the  kanaka  is  almost  nil  in  the 
angling  art  there.  But  those  same  fish  that  I  gazed  at 
in  amazement  in  the  tanks  of  the  museums  are  spread 
out  here  on  tables  for  my  buying. 

Impossible  fish  they  are,  pale  blue;  brilliant  yellow; 
black  as  charcoal;  sloe,  with  orange  stripes;  scarlet, 
spotted,  and  barred  in  rainbow  tints.  The  parrot-fish 
are  especially  splendid  in  spangling  radiancy,  their  tails 
and  a  spine  in  their  mouths  giving  them  their  name. 

The  impression  made  upon  one's  first  visit  to  the 
Papeete  market  is  overwhelming,  the  plenitude  of 
nature  rejoicing  one's  heart,  and  the  care  of  the  Great 
Consciousness  for  beauty  and  color,  and  even  for  the 
ludicrous,  the  merely  funny,  causing  curious  groping 
sensations  of  wonder  at  the  varied  plan  of  creation. 

Sexual  selection  and  suitability  to  survive  are  respon- 
sible. Those  vivid  colors,  those  symmetrical  markings, 
and  laughable  forms  are  all  part  of  the  going  on  of  the 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  275 

world,  the  adaptation  to  environment,  and  the  desire  for 
love  and  admiration  in  the  male  and  female. 

These  things  from  the  deep  seem  hardly  fish.  They 
are  bits  of  the  sunset,  fragments  of  a  mosaic,  Futuris- 
tic pictures ;  anything  but  our  sodden,  gray,  or  watery  - 
hued  fish  of  temperate  climes.  Some  are  as  green  as 
the  hills  of  Erin,  others  as  blue  as  the  sky,  as  crimson 
as  blood,  as  yellow  as  the  flag  of  China.  They  are  cut 
by  nature  in  many  patterns,  round,  or  sectional,  like  a 
piece  of  pie,  triangular,  almost  square ;  some  with  a  back 
fin  that  floats  out  a  foot  or  two  behind. 

They  are  grotesque,  alarming,  apparently  the  design 
of  a  joker.  But  tread  not  on  the  domain  of  the  scien- 
tist, for  he  will  prove  to  you  that  each  separate  queerness 
is  only  a  trick  of  nature  to  fit  its  owner  to  the  neces- 
sities of  his  habitat.  The  parrot-fish  are  screamingly 
fantastic.  There  are  not  even  in  the  warm  California 
or  Florida  waters  the  duplicates  of  these  rainbow  fish. 
The  Garibaldi  perch  and  the  electric  fish  excite  interest 
at  Santa  Catalina,  but  here  are  a  hundred  marvels,  and 
if  I  wish  I  can  see  them  all  as  they  swim  in  and  out  of 
the  coral  caverns  within  the  lagoon. 

Porcupine  fish  are  a  delicacy,  squid  are  esteemed,  and 
even  the  devilfish  is  on  the  tables,  hideous,  repellent, 
slimy,  horned,  and  tentacled;  not  mighty  enough  to 
crush  out  the  life  of  the  fisher,  as  was  the  horrific  crea- 
ture in  Victor  Hugo's  "Toilers  of  the  Sea,"  whom  his 
hero  fought,  yet  menacing  even  when  dead.  It  is  a 
frightful  figure  in  its  aspect  of  hatred  and  ugliness,  but 
good  to  eat.  See  that  fat  Tahitian  thrust  his  finger  into 
the  sides  of  the  octopus  to  plumb  its  cooking  qualities. 
It  is  quickly  sold. 


276  MYSTIC  ISLES 

There  are  crabs  and  crawfish,  eels  and  shrimps, 
prawns  and  varos,  all  hung  up  on  strings.  There  are 
oysters  and  maoao,  alive  and  dripping.  The  maoao  is 
the  turbo,  a  gastropod,  a  mysterious  inhabitant  of  a 
twisted  shell,  who  shuts  the  door  to  his  home  with  a 
brightly-colored  operculum,  for  all  the  world  like  half 
of  a  cuff-button.  One  eats  him  raw  or  cooked  or  dried. 
But  he  is  not  so  odd  as  the  varo,  one  of  the  most  delicious 
and  expensive  of  Tahitian  foods.  These  sea  centipedes, 
as  the  English  call  them  in  Tahiti,  are  a  species  of 
ibacus,  and  are  from  six  to  twelve  inches  long,  and  two 
wide.  They  have  legs  or  feelers  all  along  their  sides, 
like  a  pocket  comb,  a  hideous  head,  and  tail,  and  a  gen- 
erally repulsive  appearance.  If  one  did  not  know  they 
were  excellent  eating,  and  most  harmless  in  their  habits, 
one  would  be  tempted  to  run  or  take  to  a  tree  at  sight  of 
them.  Their  shell  is  a  translucent  yellow,  with  black 
markings.  The  female  has  a  red  stripe  down  her  back, 
and  red  eggs  beneath  her.  She  is  richer  in  flavor,  and 
more  deadly  than  the  male  to  one  who  has  a  natural 
diathesis  to  poisoning  by  varos.  Many  whites  cannot 
eat  them.  Some  lose  appetite  at  their  looks,  their  like- 
ness to  a  gigantic  thousand-leg.  Others  find  that  the 
varo  rests  uneasy  within  them,  as  though  each  claw  or 
tooth  of  the  comb  grasped  a  vital  part  of  their  anatomy. 
I  think  varos  excellent  wrhen  wrapped  in  hotu  leaves, 
and  grilled  as  a  lobster.  I  take  the  beastie  in  my  fingers 
and  suck  out  the  meat.  Amateurs  must  keep  their  eyes 
shut  during  this  operation. 

Catching  varos  is  tedious  and  requires  skill.  They 
live  in  the  sand  of  the  beach  under  two  or  three  feet  of 
water.  One  has  to  find  their  holes  by  wading  and  peer- 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  277 

Ing.  They  are  small  at  the  top,  but  roomy  below.  One 
cannot  see  these  holes  through  ruffled  water.  Once  lo- 
cated, grapnels,  or  spools  fitted  with  a  dozen  hooks,  are 
lowered  into  them.  A  pair  inhabits  the  same  den.  If 
the  male  is  at  home,  he  seizes  the  grapnel,  and  is  raised 
and  captured,  and  the  female  follows.  But  if  the 
female  emerges  first,  it  is  a  sure  sign  that  the  male  is 
absent  in  search  of  food.  I  have  pondered  as  to  this 
habit  of  the  varo,  and  have  tried  to  persuade  me  that  the 
male,  being  a  courteous  shrimp, — he  is  a  kind  of  mantis- 
shrimp, — combats  the  intruding  hooks  first  in  order  to 
protect  his  loved  one ;  but  the  grapnel  is  baited  with  fish, 
and  though  masculine  pride  would  insist  that  chivalry 
urges  varo  homme  to  defend  his  domestic  shrine,  fishers 
for  the  tidbit  say  that  he  is  after  the  bait,  and  holds  to  it 
so  tightly  that  he  sacrifices  his  life.  Nevertheless,  the 
lady  embraces  the  same  opportunity  to  rise,  and  their 
deserted  tenement  is  soon  filled  by  the  sands. 

Trapping  varos  calls  for  patience  and  much  dexterity. 
The  mere  finding  of  the  holes  is  possible  only  to  natives 
trained  from  childhood.  Six  varos  make  a  good  meal, 
with  bread  and  wine,  and  they  are  most  enjoyable  hot — 
also  most  indigestible. 

"Begin  their  eating  by  sucking  a  cold  one,"  once  said 
a  bon  vivant  to  me.  "Only  when  accustomed  to  them 
should  you  dare  them  hot  and  in  numbers." 

Flying-fish  are  sold,  many  of  them  delicate  in  taste 
and  shapely. 

One  may  buy  favorite  sauces  for  fish,  and  some  of 
the  women  offered  them  to  me.  One  is  taiaro,  made  of 
the  hard  meat  of  the  cocoanut,  with  pounded  shrimp, 
and  allowed  to  ferment  slightly.  It  is  put  up  in  bamboo 


278  MYSTIC  ISLES 

tubes,  three  inches  in  diameter,  and  four  or  five  feet 
long,  tied  at  the  opening  with  a  pandanus-leaf  for  a 
seal.  It  is  delicious  on  raw  fish.  I  have  seen  a  native 
take  his  fish  by  the  tail  and  devour  it  as  one  would  a 
banana;  but  the  Tahitians  cut  up  the  fish,  and,  after 
soaking  it  in  lime-juice,  eat  it  with  the  taiaro.  It  is  as 
tasty  as  Blue  Points  and  tabasco. 

There  are  two  other  epicurean  sauces,  one  made  of 
the  omotu,  the  soft  cocoanut,  which  is  split,  the  meat 
dug  out  and  put  in  the  hue,  the  calabash,  mixed  with  3 
little  salt  water,  lime-juice,  and  the  juice  of  the  rea,  the 
saffron,  and  allowed  to  ferment.  This  is  the  mitihut, 
a  piquant  and  fetid,  puante  sauce  that  seasons  all 
Tahitian  meals.  The  calabash  is  left  in  the  sun,  and 
when  the  sauce  dries  up,  water  is  poured  on  the  dry  in- 
gredients, a  perpetual  saucebox. 

In  the  arrangement  of  vegetables  our  own  hucksterr 
could  learn.  Every  piece  is  scraped  and  cleansed. 
String  beans  are  tied  together  in  bundles  like  cigars  or 
asparagus,  and  lettuce  of  several  varieties,  romaine  and 
endive,  parsnips,  carrots,  beets,  turnips,  and  even  pota- 
toes, sweet  and  white,  are  shown  in  immaculate  condi- 
tion. The  tomatoes  do  not  rival  ours,  but  Tahiti  being 
seventeen  degrees  below  the  equator,  one  cannot  expect 
such  tropical  regions  to  produce  temperate-zone  plants 
to  perfection.  That  they  are  provided  at  all  is  due  to 
the  Chinese,  those  patient,  acute  Cantonese  and  Amoy- 
ans.  The  Tahitian  has  no  competence  in  intensive  cul- 
tivation or  the  will  to  toil.  Were  it  not  for  the  Chinese, 
white  residents  in  many  countries  would  have  to  forego 
vegetables.  It  is  so  in  Mexico  and  Hawaii  and  the 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  279 

Philippines,  although  Japanese  in  the  first  two  compete 
with  them. 

The  main  food  of  the  Tahitians  is  feis,  as  is  bread  to 
us,  or  rice  to  the  Asiatic.  It  is  not  so  in  the  Marquesas, 
eight  hundred  miles  north,  where  breadfruit  is  the  staff, 
nor  in  Hawaii,  where  fermented  taro  (poi)  is  the  chief 
reliance  of  the  kanaka.  The  feis,  gigantic  bananas  of 
coarse  fiber,  which  must  be  cooked,  are  about  a  foot  in 
length,  and  three  inches  in  diameter,  and  grow  in  im- 
mense, heavy  bunches  in  the  mountains,  so  that  obtain- 
ing them  is  great  labor.  They  are  wild  creatures  of 
heights,  and  love  the  spots  most  difficult  of  access. 
Only  barefooted  men  can  reach  them.  These  feis  are  a 
separate  species.  The  market-place  is  filled  with  them, 
and  hardly  a  Tahitian  but  buys  his  quota  for  the  day. 
The  /^'-gatherers  are  men  of  giant  strength,  naked  save 
for  the  pareu  about  the  loins,  and  often  their  feet  from 
climbing  and  holding  on  to  rocks  and  roots  are  curiously 
deformed,  the  toes  spread  an  inch  apart,  and  sometimes 
the  big  toe  is  opposed  to  the  others,  like  a  thumb.  There 
are  besides  many  kinds  of  bananas  here  for  eating  raw ; 
some  are  as  small  as  a  man's  finger,  and  as  sweet  as 
honey. 

The  fei-hunters  hang  six  or  seven  bunches  on  a  bam- 
boo pole  and  bring  them  thus  to  market.  One  meets 
these  young  Atlases  moving  along  the  roads,  chaplets  of 
frangipani  upon  their  curling  hair,  or  perhaps  a  single 
gardenia  or  tube-rose  behind  their  ears,  singing  softly 
and  treading  steadily,  smiling,  and  all  with  a  burden 
that  would  stagger  a  white  athlete. 

The  taro  looks  like  a  war-club,  several  feet  long, 


280  MYSTIC  ISLES 

three  inches  thick,  and  with  a  fierce  knob.  It  and  its 
tops  are  in  demand.  The  breadfruit  are  as  big  as  Dutch 
cheese,  weighing  four  or  five  pounds,  their  green  rinds 
tuberculated  like  a  golf-ball.  Sapadillos,  tamarinds, 
limes,  mangoes,  oranges,  acachous,  and  a  dozen  other 
native  fruits  are  to  be  had.  Cocoanuts  and  papayas 
are  of  course,  favorites.  There  are  many  kinds  of  co- 
coanuts.  I  like  best  the  young  nut,  which  has  the  meat 
yet  unformed  or  barely  so,  and  can  be  eaten  with  a 
spoon,  and  hclds  about  a  quart  of  delicious  wine.  No 
matter  how  hot  the  day,  this  wine  is  always  cool.  One 
has  only  to  pierce  the  top  of  the  green  rind,  and  tilt  the 
hole  above  one's  mouth.  If  one  has  alcoholic  leanings, 
the  wine  of  a  cocoanut,  an  ounce  of  rum,  two  lumps  of 
sugar,  a  dash  of  grenadine,  and  the  mixture  were  para- 
dise enow. 

The  papayas,  which  the  British  call  mammee-apple 
or  even  mummy-apple  or  papaw,  because  of  the  West 
Indian  name,  mamey,  are  much  like  pumpkins  in  ap- 
pearance. They  grow  on  trees,  quite  like  palms,  from 
ten  to  thirty  feet  high,  the  trunk  scaly  like  an  alligator's 
hide,  and  the  leaves  pointed.  The  fruit  hangs  in  a 
cluster  at  the  crown  of  the  tree,  green  and  yellow,  re- 
sembling badly  shaped  melons.  The  taste  is  musky 
sweet  and  not  always  agreeable  to  tyros.  The  seeds  are 
black  and  full  of  pepsin.  Boiled  when  green,  the  pa- 
paya reminds  one  of  vegetable  marrow;  and  cooked 
when  ripe,  it  makes  a  pie  stuffing  not  to  be  despised.  I 
have  often  hung  steaks  or  birds  in  the  tree,  protected  by 
a  cage  from  pests,  or  wrapped  them  in  papaya-leaves  to 
make  them  tender.  The  very  atmosphere  does  this, 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  281 

and  the  pepsin  extracted  from  the  papaya  by  science  is 
much  used  by  druggists  instead  of  animal  extracts. 

The  market  closed,  the  venders  who  have  come  in 
carts  drive  home,  while  those  Tahitians  who  are  not  too 
old  adorn  themselves  with  flowers  and  seek  pleasure. 
Young  and  old,  they  are  laughing.  Why?  I  need 
never  ask  the  reason  here,  but  look  to  the  blue  sky,  the 
placid  sea  within  the  lagoon,  the  generous  fruitage  of 
nature,  the  palms  and  flowers  ever  present  and  inviting ; 
the  very  sign  of  the  gentle  souls  and  merry  hearts  of 
these  most  lovable  people.  When  I  am  alone  with  them 
I  do  not  walk.  I  dance  or  skip. 

Life  is  easy.  The  fei,  the  breadfruit,  the  cocoanut, 
the  mango,  and  the  taro  are  all  about.  Xo  plow,  no  hoe, 
or  rude  labor,  but  for  the  lifting  of  one's  hand  there  is 
food.  The  fish  leap  in  the  brine,  and  the  pig  fattens  for 
the  oven.  Clothes  are  irksome.  A  straw  hut  may  be 
built  in  an  hour  or  two,  and  in  the  grove  sounds  the  soft 
music  of  love. 

Aue!  nom  de  poisson!  within  a  day  the  market  be- 
came a  wailing-place.  There  were  no  fish.  The  tables 
daily  covered  with  them  were  empty.  The  happy  wives 
and  consorts  who  had  been  wont  to  sell  the  catch  of  the 
men  remained  in  their  homes,  and  the  fishers  themselves 
were  there  or  idle  on  the  streets.  The  districts  around 
the  island,  which  for  decades  had  despatched  by  the  daily 
diligence,  or  by  special  vehicle  or  boat,  the  drafts  of  the 
village  nets,  sent  not  a  fin.  Never  in  Tahiti's  history 
except  when  war  raged  between  clans,  or  between  Ta- 
hitians and  French,  had  there  been  such  a  fish  famine. 

And,  name  of  a  dog!  it  was  due  to  a  greve,  a  strike. 


282  MYSTIC  ISLES 


It  came  upon  the  Papeete  people  like  a  tidal  wave  out 
of  the  sea,  or  like  a  cyclone  that  devastates  a  Paumotu 
atoll,  but,  entre  nous,  it  had  been  brooding  for  months. 
Fish  had  been  getting  dearer  and  dearer  for  a  long  time, 
and  householders  had  complained  bitterly.  They  re- 
called the  time  when  for  a  franc  one  could  buy  enough 
delicious  fish  for  a  family  feast.  They  called  the 
taata  Jiara,  the  native  anglers,  cochons,  hogs,  and  they 
discussed  when  they  gathered  in  the  clubs,  or  when 
ladies  met  at  market,  the  weakness  of  the  authorities  in 
allowing  the  extortion.  But  nothing  was  done.  The 
extortion  continued,  and  the  profanity  increased.  At 
the  Cercle  Bouganville  Captain  Goeltz  and  the  other  re- 
tired salts  banged  the  tables  and  said  to  me: 

"Sacre  redingote!  is  it  that  the  indigenes  pay  the  gov- 
ernor or  give  him  fish  free  ?  Are  we  French  citizens  to 
die  of  hunger  that  savages  may  ride  in  les  Fords?" 

They  shouted  for  Doctor  Funks,  and  drank  damna- 
tion to  the  regime  that  let  patriots  suffer  to  profit  les 
canaques.  But,  in  reality,  the  governor  months  ago  had 
secretly  begun  a  plan  to  help  them. 

One  day  the  governor,  his  good  lady  being  gone  to 
visit  at  Raiatea,  had  given  his  cook  three  francs  to  buy 
fish  for  the  dejeuner  at  the  palace.  When  they  came 
on  the  table,  a  bare  bite  for  each  of  the  company,  the 
governor  had  called  in  the  chef. 

"Mais,  I  gave  you  three  francs  for  the  fish,  riest-ce 
pas?" 

"Mais,  vous  don3  lai  moi  free  franc,  oui,  oui"  an- 
swered the  Chinese.  "Moi  don'lai  canaque  po'  po'sson" 

The  governor  had  led  in  the  chorus  of  sdcres  and 
diables.  All  at  the  table  were  of  the  redingote  family, 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  283 

all  feeding  from  the  national  trough  at  Paris,  and  they 
had  the  courage  and  power  to  end  the  damnable  imposi- 
tion on  the  slender  purses  of  Papeete  citizens.  Sa- 
pHftil  this  robbery  must  cease.  He  must  go  slow,  how- 
ever. Being  an  honest  and  unselfish  man,  he  investi- 
gated and  initiated  legislation  so  carefully  and  tardily 
that  the  remedy  for  the  evil  was  applied  only  four  days 
ago.  He  had  returned  to  France,  so  one  could  not  say 
that  he  consulted  his  own  purse;  but  the  present  gov- 
ernor, an  amiable  man  and  a  good  bridge-player,  also 
liked  fish,  and  they  pay  no  bonanza  salaries,  the  French. 
The  fishermen  had  known,  of  course,  of  the  approaching 
end  of  their  piracy,  but,  like  Tahitians,  waited  until  ne- 
cessity for  action.  The  official  paper  in  which  all  laws 
are  published  had  the  ordinance  set  out  in  full.  Trans- 
lated, briefly,  from  the  French,  it  ran  like  this : 

That  the  Governor  of  the  establishments  of  France  in 
Oceania,  a  chevalier  of  the  Legion  of  Honor  [this  information 
is  inserted  in  every  degree,  announcement  and  statement  the 
governor  makes,  and  stares  at  one  from  a  hundred  trees],  in 
view  of  the  "article  du  decret  du  21  decembre,  1885,  etc.  [and 
in  view  of  a  dozen  other  articles  of  various  dates  since],  con- 
sidering that  fish  is  the  basis  of  the  alimentation  of  the  Tahi- 
tians, that  in  the  Papeete  public  market,  fish  has  been  monopo- 
lized with  the  result  that  its  price  has  been  raised  steadily,  and 
a  situation  created  injurious  to  the  working  people,  the  cost 
of  living  necessitating  a  constant  increase  in  salaries,  orders 
that  after  a  date  fixed,  fish  be  sold  by  weight  and  at  the  follow- 
ing prices  per  kilo,  according  to  the  kind  of  fish: 

30  cents  a  kilo  25  cents  a  kilo  20  cents  a  kilo 

1st  category  2d  category  3d  category 

Aahi  Auhopu                   Ature 

Ahuru  Au  aavere                Atoti 


284 


MYSTIC  ISLES 


30  cents  a  kilo 
1st  category 
Anae 
Apai 
Ava 
Lihi 
Mu 
Nanue 
Oeo 

Paaihere 
Paraha  peue 
Tehu 
Varo 

Oura  (chevrette) 
Paapaa  (crabs) 
Oura-miti  (langouste) 


25  cents  a  kilo 
2d  category 

loio 

Mahimahi 

Moi 

Nato 

Nape 

Orare 

Pacre 

Parai 

Puhi  pape 

Tohe  veri 

Toau 

Uhi 

Ume 

Vau 

Roi 

Tuhura 


20  cents  a  kilo 
3d  category 
Aoa-Ropa 
Faia 
Fee 
Fai 
Honu 
Inaa 
Maere 
Maito 
Marara 
Manini 
Mao 
Mana 
Ouma 
Oiri 
Pahoro 
Patia 
Puhu  miti 
Pahua 
Tapio 

As  a  kilo  is  two  and  a  fifth  pounds,  the  ature  that 
Joseph  caught  by  the  Quai  de  Commerce,  being  in  the 
third  category,  would  cost,  under  the  ukase,  less  than 
ten  cents  a  pound.  Crabs  being  in  the  first  category— 
paapaa, — would  cost  about  thirteen  cents  a  pound,  and 
the  succulent  raro  the  same,  whereas  they  were  then  two 
francs,  or  forty  cents  a  pound.  We  lovers  of  sea  centi- 
pedes toasted  the  brave  governor  vociferously. 

The  decrees  were  nailed  to  the  trees  on  the  Broom 
Road,  in  the  rue  de  Rivoli,  and  in  the  market-place. 
The  populace  were  joyous,  though  some  old  wholesale 
buyers  like  Lovaina  questioned  the  wisdom  of  the  gov- 
ernor's edict  and  the  effect  on  themselves. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  285 

"If  they  do  that,"  said  she,  "maybe,  by'n'by  they  fix 
my  meal  or  lime  squash." 

Until  the  date  of  carrying  out  the  mandate,  one  picked 
out  a  pleasing  fish  or  string  of  fish,  all  nicely  wrapped 
in  leaves,  and  one  asked,  "A  hia?  How  much?" 

When  Lovaina  inquired  the  price,  she  smiled  her 
sweetest,  rubbed  the  saleslady's  back,  and  uttered  some 
joke  that  made  her  sway  with  laughter,  so  that  price  be- 
came of  no  importance.  But  a  sour-faced  white  or  a 
pompous  bureaucrat  paid  her  saving,  and  Chinese,  who 
kept  the  restaurants,  invoked  the  curse  of  barrenness 
upon  the  venders. 

The  day  came  for  the  new  scheme  of  fish-selling  to  go 
into  effect.  The  mayor,  •  a  long-bearded  and  shrewd 
druggist,  had  bought  up  all  the  half-way  accurate  scales 
in  the  city,  for  there  had  not  been  a  balance  in  the 
market.  Everything  was  by  strings,  bunches,  feels, 
and  hefts.  The  fish  counters,  polished  by  the  guardian 
of  the  marchCj  were  now  brilliant  with  the  shiny 
apparatus. 

The  long-awaited  morning  found  a  crowd  peeping 
through  the  railing  half  an  hour  earlier  than  usual.  All 
would  have  a  fill  of  delicacies.  Lovaina  with  the 
Dummy  drove  down  to  the  Annexe  for  me.  Vava  was 
making  queer  signs  to  her  which  either  were  unintelli- 
gible or  which  she  thought  absurd.  She  waved  her  long 
forefinger  before  him,  which  meant:  "Don't  talk  fool- 
ishness. I  am  not  a  fool." 

We  reached  the  market-place  when  only  a  score  or 
two  had  gathered. 

A  thousand  devils!  there  was  not  a  fish  on  the  slabs. 
The  merry  wives  were  absent.  The  condition  was  plain. 


286  MYSTIC  ISLES 

The  Dummy  uttered  a  demoniacal  grunt,  and  shook 
his  head  and  hands  before  Lovaina  in  accusation.  She 
answered  him  with  a  movement  of  her  head  up  and 
down,  which  signified  acquiescence. 

"Dummy  know,"  she  said  mysteriously.  "That  Vava 
he  find  everything.  He  like  old-time  taJiutaliu,  sor- 
cerer. He  tell  me  Annexe  no  fish.  He  say  now  no 
fish  till  finish  those  masheen." 

She  laughed  and  rubbed  my  shoulders. 

"The  fish  slip  away,"  she  said,  "and  leave  only  their 
scales!  Aue!" 

M.  Lontane,  the  second  in  command  of  the  gendarmes, 
was  sent  scouting,  and  reported  to  the  governor — not 
the  one  who  originated  the  manifesto — that  the  famine 
was  the  result  of  an  organized  revolt  against  the  law 
and  order  of  the  land.  Fishermen  he  had  questioned, 
replied  simply,  "Aita  faito,  paru!  Aita  hoo,  paru!" 
Which,  holy  blue!  meant,  "Xo  scales,  fish!  Xo  price, 
fish!" 

What  to  do?  One  cannot  make  a  horse  drink  unless 
one  gives  him  red  peppers  to  eat.  Even  the  Govern- 
ment could  not  make  a  fisherman  fish  for  market,  as 
there  was  a  law  against  enforced  labor  except  as  pun- 
ishment for  crime  or  in  emergencies,  such  as  during  the 
existence  of  martial  law,  the  guarding  against  a  con- 
flagration, or  a  tidal  wave  or  cyclone.  At  the  Cercle 
Militaire  many  of  the  bureaucrats,  and  especially  the 
doctor  who  had  treated  the  cow-boy,  were  for  martial 
law,  anyway.  Xapoleon  knew,  said  the  fierce  medecln. 
"A  whiff  of  grapeshot,  and  the  reef  would  be  again 
gleaming  with  lights,  and  the  diligences  would  pour  in 
with  loads  of  fish." 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  287 

Doctor  Cassiou,  a  very  old  resident,  and  not  at  all 
fierce,  asked  his  confrere  against  whom  would  the  grape- 
shot  be  directed.  Would  he  gather  the  fishermen  from 
all  over  Tahiti,  and  decimate  them,  the  way  the  Little 
Corporal  purged  mutiny  out  of  his  regiments?  Lon- 
tane  was  sent  out  again.  In  the  Cercle  Bougainville  he 
took  a  rum  punch  before  starting  on  his  bicycle,  and  he 
swore  by  his  patron  saint,  Bacchus,  that  he  would  solve 
the  problem  even  if  denied  the  remedy  of  force  majeure. 

Within  three  hours  of  his  return  from  Patutoa,  a 
meeting  was  called  of  the  council  of  state,  the  governor, 
the  doctors,  the  druggist,  a  merchant  or  two,  and  ?. 
lawyer,  and  before  it  M.  Lontane  disclosed  that  the  nav 
tives  were  possessed  by  a  new  devil  that  he  feared  war 
a  recrudescence  of  the  ancient  struggle  for  indepen 
dence. 

Each  fisherman  he  had  examined  refused  to  answer 
his  interrogations,  saying  only,  "I  dobbebelly  dobbe- 
belly." 

The  governor  scratched  his  ear,  and  the  mayor  wig- 
gled his  hands  behind,  as  he  had  on  the  wharf  after  the 
battle  of  the  limes,  coal,  and  potatoes.  The  lawyer  said 
it  must  be  an  incantation,  but  that  it  was  not  Tahitian, 
for  that  language  had  no  "d"  in  its  alphabet.  M.  Lon- 
tane and  all  his  squad  were  given  peremptory  orders  to 
unriddle  the  enigma. 

Meanwhile  the  fishless  market  continued.  It  was  not 
entirely  fishless,  for  before  the  bell  rang  we  would  see 
over  the  railings  a  few  handfuls  of  varos,  crayfish,  and 
shrimps  and  perhaps  a  dozen  small  baskets  of  oysters. 
A  policeman  prevented  a  riot,  but  could  not  stay  the 
rush  when  the  bell  rang  and  the  gate  was  opened.  The 


288  MYSTIC  ISLES 

lovers  of  shellfish  and  the  servants  of  the  well-to-do 
snatched  madly  at  the  small  supply,  and  paid  whatever 
extravagant  price  was  demanded.  The  scales  were 
never  touched,  and  any  insistence  upon  the  new  legal 
plan  and  price  was  laughed  at.  With  these  delicacies 
beyond  their  means,  the  natives  stormed  the  two  pork 
butchers,  the  Tinitos.  They  grabbed  the  chops  and 
lumps  of  pig,  poking  and  kneading  them,  shouting  for 
their  weight,  and  in  some  instances  making  off  without 
paying.  There  was  such  a  howdy-do  that  extra  police- 
men were  summoned  to  form  all  into  line. 

There  were  no  scaly  fish,  and  it  came  out  that  the 
shellfish  were  caught  by  women,  widows  who  had  no 
men  to  obey  or  please,  who  had  children,  or  who  wanted 
francs  to  buy  gewgaws  or  tobacco;  and  a  few  unsocial 
men  fishers  who  did  not  abide  by  the  common  interests 
of  their  group. 

At  Lovaina's  we  were  on  a  tiresome  round  of  canned 
salmon,  eggs,  and  beef,  and  eggs  rose  to  six  sous  each. 
In  about  a  fortnight  we  began  to  have  fish  as  usual,  and 
Lovaina  signed  to  me  that  the  Dummy  procured  them 
in  the  country.  I  was  very  curious,  and  asked  if  I 
might  accompany  him.  She  said  that  he  would  call  for 
me  at  the  Annexe  the  next  time  he  went. 

I  was  awakened  after  midnight  in  my  room — the 
doors  were  never  locked — by  the  Dummy  leaning  over 
and  shaking  me.  I  opened  my  eyes,  and  he  put  his 
fingers  to  his  lips.  I  dressed,  and  went  with  him  in  the 
old  surrey.  We  drove  through  the  night  along  the 
Broom  Road.  Once  past  the  cemetery  we  were  in  the 
country.  The  cocoanut-trees  were  gray  ghosts  against 
the  dark  foliage  and  trunks  of  the  breadfruits  and  the 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  289 

sugar  cane ;  the  reef  was  a  faint  gleam  of  white  over  the 
lagoon  and  a  subdued  sound  of  distant  waters. 

We  jogged  along,  and  as  we  approached  Fa'a,  I  lit 
a  match  and  looked  at  my  watch.  It  was  nearly  two 
o'clock.  The  Dummy  stopped  the  horse  at  Kelly's 
dance-hall  in  a  palm  grove.  The  building  was  of  bam- 
boo and  thatch,  with  a  smooth  floor  of  Oregon  pine,  and 
was  a  former  himene  house.  Kelly  had  rented  it  from 
the  church  authorities.  The  dancing  was  over  for  the 
night,  but  a  few  carts  were  in  the  grove,  and  the  lights 
were  bright.  We  went  inside,  and  found  forty  or  fifty 
Tahitians,  men  and  women,  squatting  or  sitting  on  the 
floor,  while  on  the  platform  was  Kelly  himself,  with  his 
accordion  on  the  table.  He  saw  me  and  shouted  "la 
ora  na!"  And  after  a  few  minutes,  while  others  came, 
began  to  speak.  What  he  said  was  interpreted  by  a 
Frenchman,  who,  to  my  astonishment,  proved  to  be  the 
editor  of  one  of  those  anti-government  papers  printed 
in  San  Francisco,  that  Ivan  Stroganoff  had  shown  me. 

Kelly  addressed  the  audience,  "Fishermen  and  fel- 
low stiffs."  He  said  that  the  fish  strike  was  a  success, 
and  if  they  all  remained  true  to  one  another,  they  would 
win,  and  the  scales  would  be  kicked  out.  The  few  scabs 
who  sold  fish  in  the  market  only  made  sore  those  unable 
to  buy.  He  said  that  he  had  found  out  that  the  law 
applied  only  to  the  market-place,  and  that  a  plan  would 
be  tried  of  hawking  fish  from  house  to  house  in  Papeete. 
They  would  circumvent  the  governor's  proclamation  in 
that  way.  He  praised  their  fortitude  in  the  struggle, 
and  after  the  editor  had  interpreted  stiffs  by  tc  tamaiti 
arolia  e,  which  means  poor  children,  and  scabs  by  lore, 
which  means  rats,  and  had  ended  with  a  peroration  that 


290  MYSTIC  ISLES 

brought  many  cries  of  "Maitai!  Good!"  Kelly  took 
up  liis  accordion,  and  began  to  play  the  sacred  air  of 
"Revive  us  Again!" 

He  led  the  singing  of  his  version : 

"Hallelujah!  I 'm  a  bum!     Hallelujah!  Bum  again! 
Hallelujah!  Give  us  a  hand-out!     To  save  us  from  sin!" 

The  Tahitians  rocked  to  and  fro,  threw  back  their 
heads,  and,  their  eyes  shut  as  in  their  religious  himenes, 
chorused  joyfully: 

"Hahrayrooyah !   I 'm   a   boom!     Hahrayrooyah  !   Boomagay ! 
Hahrayrooyah !  Hizzandow!     To  tave  ut  fruh  tin!" 

They  sang  the  refrain  a  dozen  times,  and  then  Kelly 
dismissed  the  meeting  with  a  request  for  "three  cheers 
for  the  I.  W.  W." 

There  is  no  "w"  in  French  or  in  Tahitian,  and  the  in- 
terpreter said,  "R-uperupe  ah-ee  dohblevay  dohblevay!" 
And  the  Tahitians :  "Ai  dobbebelly  dobbebelly !" 

Kelly  came  down  from  the  platform,  his  freckled  face 
shining  and  his  eyes  serious  but  twinkling.  He  greeted 
me  as  the  natives  lit  cigarettes  and  filed  out. 

"I  'm  runnin'  their  strike  for  them,"  he  said.  "It  's 
on  the  square.  The  poor  fish!  They  don't  make 
hardly  enough  to  pay  for  their  nets,  let  alone  an  honest 
day's  pay,  and  they  're  up  half  the  night  and  takin' 
chances  with  the  sharks  and  the  devil-fish.  They  have 
to  pay  market  dues  and  all  sorts  of  taxes.  They  're 
good  stiffs  all  right,  and  every  one  has  a  membership 
card  in  the  I.  W.  W.  applied  for." 

When  we  went  outside,  I  saw  that  the  Dummy  who 
had  been  a  witness  of  the  scene  in  the  hall,  had  a 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  291 

large  package  of  fish  in  the  surrey,  and  all  around  there 
were  other  packages  of  them.  The  men  had  been  sell- 
ing to  those  who  came  to  Fa 'a  for  them,  the  law  extend- 
ing only  to  the  market  in  Papeete. 

The  strikers  hawked  the  fish  in  town  the  next  dav, 

*    " 

but  this  was  immediately  forbidden.  Hungry  for  fish 
— the  Tahitians  have  one  word  meaning  all  that — though 
the  people  were,  few  could  drive  out  to  Fa'a  to  fetch 
them.  Within  Papeete  fish  were  mysteriously  nailed 
to  the  trees  at  night,  and  over  each  was  a  card  with  the 
letters,  "I.  W.  W." 

Again  a  meeting  of  the  council  of  state  was  called, 
and  at  it  M.  Lontane  revealed  the  meaning  of  those 
cabalistic  letters  and  the  leadership  of  Kelly.  He  had 
tracked  down  the  fishermen  and  found  their  headquar- 
ters at  the  dance  hall. 

At  the  Cercle  Bougainville  there  was  an  uproar. 
Merchants  drank  twice  their  stint  of  liquor  in  their  in- 
dignation. Syndicalism  was  invading  their  shores,  and 
their  already  limited  labor  supply  would  be  corrupted. 

I  could  not  picture  too  seriously  the  wrath  of  the 
honest  traders  at  the  traitorous  conduct  of  Kelly,  "a 
white  man,"  as  told  by  M.  Lontane.  I  was  upbraided 
because  of  Kelly  being  an  American  with  an  Irish  name. 
Lying  Bill  said  it  was  "A  bloody  Guy  Fawkes  plot." 

M.  Lontane  took  full  credit  for  the  discovery  of  what 
he  termed  "A  complot  that  would  rival  the  Dreyfus 
case." 

He  struck  his  chest,  and  asked  me  sternly  if  I  knew  of 
M.  LeCoq,  the  great  detective,  of  Emile  Gaboriau. 

Kelly  was  arrested  in  the  midst  of  his  dancing  soiree 
at  Fa'a.  He  was  put  in  the  calaboose,  and  when  he 


292  MYSTIC  ISLES 

frankly  said  that  he  had'come  to  Tahiti  to  preach  the 
gospel  of  I.  W.  W.-ism  and  that  he  believed  the  fisher- 
men had  all  the  right  on  their  side,  he  was  sentenced  as 
"a  foreigner  without  visible  means  of  support,  a  vagrant, 
miscreant,  vagabond,  and  dangerous  alien,"  to  a  month 
on  the  roads,  and  then  to  be  deported  to  the  United 
States,  whence  he  had  come. 

The  strike  or  walk-out  was  broken.  With  the  cessa- 
tion of  the  direction  of  Kelly  and  his  heartening  song, 
the  fishermen  gradually  went  back  to  their  routine,  and 
their  women  folk  to  the  market.  The  scales  were  in 
operation,  but  the  Uimene,  "Hahrayrooyah !  I'm  a 
boom!  Hahrayrooyah!  Boomagay!''  was  sung  from 
one  end  of  Tahiti  to  another,  and  "Ai  dobbebelly  dob- 
bebelly"  was  made  at  the  Cercle  Bougainville  a  pass- 
word to  some  very  old  rum  said  to  have  belonged  to  the 
bishop  who  wrote  the  Tahitian  dictionary. 


CHAPTER  XV 

A  drive  to  Papenoo — The  chief  of  Papenoo — A  dinner  and  poker  on  the 
beach — Incidents  of  the  game — Breakfast  the  next  morning — The  chief 
tells  his  story — The  journey  back — The  leper  child  and  her  doll — The 
Alliance  Franfaite — Bernis  and  his  daughter — Tht  band  concert  and  the 
fire — The  prize-fight— My  bowl  of  velvet 

WE  had  another  picnic;  this  time  at  Papenoo. 
Polonsky  owned  thirty  thousand  acres  of 
land  in  the  Great  Valley  of  Papenoo,  the 
largest  of  all  the  valleys  of  Tahiti.  He  had  bought  it 
from  the  Catholic  mission,  which,  following  the  monas- 
tic orders  of  the  church  in  other  countries  for  a  thousand 
years,  had  early  adopted  a  policy  of  acquiring  land. 
But  there  were  too  few  laborers  in  Tahiti  now.  Chris- 
tianity had  not  worked  the  miracle  of  preserving  them 
from  civilization.  The  priests  were  glad  to  sell  their 
extensive  holdings  at  Papenoo,  and  the  energetic  Russo- 
French  count  said  that  he  would  bring  Slav  families 
from  Europe  to  populate  and  develop  it.  He  would 
plant  the  vast  acreage  in  cocoanut-trees,  vanilla  vines, 
and  sugar-cane,  and  build  up  a  white  community  in  the 
South  Seas.  He  had  noble  plans  for  a  novel  experi- 
ment. 

We  started  from  the  Cercle  Bougainville  in  the  after- 
noon in  carriages  pulled  by  California  bronchos.  The 
dour  Llewellyn,  the  handsome  Landers,  the  boastful 
McIIenry,  Lying  Bill,  David,  the  young  American 
vanilla-shipper,  Bemis,  an  American  cocoanut-buyer, 
the  half-castes  of  the  orchestra,  and  servants,  filled  three 

293 


294  MYSTIC  ISLES 

roomy  carryalls.  The  ideal  mode  of  travel  in  Tahiti 
in  the  cool  of  the  day  would  be  a  donkey,  a  slow,  patient 
beast,  who  might  himself  take  an  interest  in  the  scenery, 
or  at  least  the  shrubbery.  But  the  white  must  ever  go 
at  top  speed,  and  we  dashed  through  the  streets  of 
Papeete,  the  accordions  playing  "Revive  us  again!"  the 
"Himene  Tatou  Arearea,"  and  other  tunes,  and  we  sing- 
ing, "Hallelujah!  I  'm  a  bum!"  and  "Faararirari  ta  oe 
Tamarii  Tahiti!  La,  li!"  One  never  makes  merry  pri- 
vately in  the  South  Seas. 

Through  Papeete  we  went  along  the  eastern  Broom 
Road,  our  train  attracting  much  attention.  We 
stopped  at  the  glacerie  for  ice,  and  Polonsky  insisted 
that  we  make  a  detour  to  his  residence  to  drink  a  stirrup- 
cup  of  champagne.  He  donned  riding-breeches  and 
took  a  horse  from  his  well-appointed  stable. 

Against  the  road  on  each  side  were  close  hedges  of 
acalypha,  or  false  coffee,  called  in  Tahitian  tafeie,  a 
small  tree  which  grows  quickly,  and  the  leaves  of  which 
are  red  or  bronze  or  green,  handsome  and  admirably 
suited  for  fencing.  Through  these  hedges  and  the 
broad  entrances  I  saw  the  houses  and  gardens,  the  resi- 
dents and  family  life  of  the  people.  Everywhere  was 
a  small  prosperity,  with  gladness ;  pigs  and  sheep  crop- 
ping the  grass  and  herbs,  which  were  a  mat  of  green, 
rising  so  fast  with  the  daily  showers  that  only  flocks 
could  keep  it  shorn.  On  the  verandas  and  on  the  turf 
idle  men  and  women  were  gazing  at  the  sky,  talking, 
humming  the  newest  air,  plaiting  hats,  or  napping. 
No  one  was  reading.  There  was  no  book-store  in 
Tahiti.  I  had  not  read  a  line  since  I  came.  I  had  not 
stepped  up  to  the  genial  dentist's  to  see  an  American 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  295 

journal.  After  years  of  the  newspaper  habit,  reading 
and  writing  them,  it  had  fallen  away  in  Tahiti  as  the 
prickly  heat  after  a  \veek  at  sea.  Of  what  interest  was 
it  that  the  divorce  record  was  growing  longer  in  Xew 
York,  that  Hinky  Dink  had  been  reflected  in  Chicago, 
and  that  Los  Angeles  had  doubled  in  population.  A 
dawn  on  the  beach,  a  swim  in  the  lagoon,  the  end  of  the 
fish  strike,  were  vastly  more  entertaining. 

We  passed  the  gorge  of  Fautaua,  where  Fragrance 
of  the  Jasmine  and  I  had  had  a  charmed  day.  The  pin- 
nacles of  the  Diadem  were  black  against  the  eastern 
sky.  Aorai,  the  tallest  peak  in  sight,  more  than  a  mile 
high,  hid  its  head  in  a  mass  of  snowy  clouds. 

Xot  far  away  was  the  mausoleum  of  the  last  king  of 
the  Society  Islands,  Pomare  the  Fifth,  with  whose  wide- 
awake widow,  the  queen,  I  had  smoked  a  cigarette  a  day 
ago.  It  was  a  pyramid  of  coral,  a  red  funeral-urn  on 
top,  and  a  red  P  on  the  facade.  Pillars  and  roof  were 
of  the  same  color,  and  a  chain  surrounded  it.  The  tomb 
was  rococo,  glaring,  typical  of  the  monuments  in  the 
South  Seas  where  the  aboriginal  structures  of  beauty  or 
interest  were  destroyed  by  the  missionaries  to  please 
their  Clapham  Seminary  god.  Pomare,  who  had  been 
the  victim  of  French  political  chicane,  enjoyed  now  but 
one  privilege.  If  his  spirit  had  senses,  it  heard  the  lap- 
ping of  the  waves  upon  the  beach  of  the  lagoon  across 
which  his  ancestor,  the  first  Pomare,  had  come  from 
Moorea  to  be  a  king. 

We  left  the  Broom  Road  for  Point  Venus  to  see  the 
monument  to  Captain  James  Cook,  the  great  mariner 
of  these  seas.  The  only  lighthouse  on  Tahiti  is  there. 
On  that  spot  Cook  and  his  astronomers  had  observed 


296  MYSTIC  ISLES 

the  transit  of  Venus  in  1769,  and  it  was  there  the  first 
English  missionaries  landed  from  the  ship  Duff  to  con- 
vert the  pagan  Tahitians.  Cook  has  a  pillar,  with  a 
plate  of  commemoration,  in  a  grove  of  purau-tTees, 
cocoanuts,  pandanus,  and  the  red  oleander;  Cook  who 
is  an  immortal,  and  was  loved  by  a  queen  here. 

We  left  behind  Paintua,  Taunoa,  Arahim,  Arue  and 
Haapape,  and  came  to  a  shore  where  no  reef  checked 
the  waves  in  a  yeasty  line  a  mile  or  less  from  the  beach, 
The  breakers  roared  and  beat  upon  a  black  shoret 
strangely  different  from  the  Tahitian  strand  that  I  had 
seen.  For  miles  a  hundred  feet  of  sable  rocks,  pebbles 
some  small  and  others  as  big  as  a  man's  hand,  lay  be. 
tween  the  receded  tide  and  the  road,  and  all  along  huge 
islets  of  somber  stone  defended  themselves  as  best  they 
could  against  the  attack  of  the  surf.  Signs  of  sur- 
render showed  in  some,  caverns  and  arches  out  by  the 
constant  hammer  of  swell  and  billow. 

Sugar-cane,  vanilla,  pineapples,  coffee,  bananas, 
plantation  after  plantation,  with  the  country  houses  of 
Papeete's  merchants,  officials,  lawyers,  and  doctors, 
moved  past  our  vehicle,  and,  as  we  increased  the  dis- 
tance from  the  capital,  the  beautiful  native  homes  ap- 
peared. 

Simple  they  were,  with  no  windows  or  doors,  mere 
shelters,  but  cool  and  cheap,  with  no  division  of  rooms, 
and  no  furniture  but  the  sleeping  mats  and  a  utensil  or 
two.  Natives  were  seen  cooking  their  simple  meal  of 
fish  and  breadfruit,  or  only  the  latter.  The  fire  was  in 
the  ground  or  under  a  grill  of  iron  on  stones.  They 
would  not  go  hungry,  for  mango-trees  lined  the  road, 
and  bananas,  fcis,  and  pineapples  were  to  be  had  for  the 
taking. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  297 

We  drove  through  Aapahi  and  Faaripoo  and  saw  a 
funeral.  In  the  grounds  of  the  dead  man  sat  two  large 
groups  of  people,  the  men  and  the  women  separate. 
They  talked  of  his  dying  and  his  property,  and  his  chil- 
dren, while  those  who  liked  to  do  so  made  him  ready  for 
the  grave.  A  hundred  yards  away,  in  a  school-yard, 
twoscore  men,  women,  boys,  and  girls  played  football. 
The  males  were  in  pareus,  naked  except  about  the  waist, 
and  they  kicked  the  heavy  leather  sphere  with  their  bare 
feet. 

Pare,  Arue,  and  Mahina  districts  behind  us,  we  were 
in  Papenoo,  a  straggling  village  of  a  few  hundred  peo- 
ple along  the  road,  the  houses,  all  but  the  half-dozen 
stores  of  the  Chinese,  set  back  a  hundred  yards,  and  the 
domestic  animals  and  carts  in  the  front. 

With  a  flourish  we  drove  into  the  inclosure  of  the 
largest,  newest,  and  most  pretentious  house,  and  were 
greeted  by  Teriieroo,  the  Tahitian  chief,  all  native,  but 
speaking  French  easily  and  musically.  Count  Polon- 
sky  shook  hands  with  him,  as  did  we  all,  but  when  a 
daughter  appeared,  neither  Polonsky  nor  we  paid  her 
any  attention.  Yet  she  was  Polonsky's  "girl,"  as  they 
say  here,  and  he  kept  her  in  good  style  in  a  house  near 
her  father's,  sending  his  yellow  automobile  for  her  when 
he  wanted  her  at  his  villa  near  Papeete. 

The  chief's  house  had  four  bedrooms,  each  with  an 
European  bed,  three-quarter  size,  and  with  a  mattress 
two  feet  high,  stuffed  with  kapok,  the  silky  cotton  which 
grows  on  trees  all  over  Tahiti.  These  mattresses  were 
beveled,  and  one  must  lie  in  their  middle  not  to  slip  off. 
The  coverlets  were  red  and  blue  in  stamped  patterns. 

It  was  dark  when  we  touched  the  earth  after  two 


298  MYSTIC  ISLES 

hours'  driving,  and  leaving  the  coachman  to  care  for  the 
horses,  we  went  with  the  chief,  each  of  us  carrying  a 
siphon  of  seltzer  or  a  bottle  of  champagne  or  claret. 
Our  way  was  through  an  old  and  dark  cocoanut  grove, 
a  bare  trail,  winding  among  the  trees,  and  ending  at  the 
beach. 

Polonsky  had  had  built  a  pavilion  for  the  revel. 
Fifty  feet  away  was  a  kitchen  in  which  the  dinner  was 
cooking,  its  odors  adding  appetite  to  that  whetted  by 
the  several  cocktails  which  Polonsky  had  mixed  when 
the  ice  was  brought  in  a  wheelbarrow  from  the  wagon. 

We  sat  down  in  chairs  on  the  turf  a  foot  from  the 
jetty  boulders,  and  watched  the  inrush  of  the  breakers. 
A  light  breeze  outside  had  stirred  the  water,  and  the 
combers  were  white  and  high. 

"Every  sea  is  really  three  seas,"  said  McHenry,  pipe 
in  hand,  as  he  sipped  his  Martini.  "We  fellows  who 
have  to  risk  our  cargoes  and  lives  in  landing  in  the  Pau- 
motus  and  Marquesas,  study  the  accursed  surf  to  find 
out  its  rules.  There  are  rules,  too,  and  the  ninth  wave 
is  the  one  we  come  in  on.  That  is  the  last  of  the  third 
group,  the  biggest,  and  the  one  that  will  bring  your  boat 
near  enough  to  shore  to  let  all  hands  leap  out  and  run 
her  up  away  from  the  undertow." 

Lights  were  placed  in  the  new  house.  It  was  ele- 
gantly made,  of  small  bamboos  up  and  down,  with  a 
floor  of  matched  boards,  the  roof  of  cocoanut-leaves, 
and  hung  with  blossoms  of  many  kinds.  The  table  had 
been  spread,  and  there  was  a  glitter  of  silver  and  glass, 
with  all  the  accoutrements  of  fashion.  We  sat  down, 
eight,  the  chief  making  nine,  and  ate  and  drank  until 
ten  o'clock.  The  piece  de  resistance  was  the  sucking 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  299 

pig,  with  taro  and  feis,  but  roasted  in  an  oven,  and  not 
in  native  style;  and  there  was  a  delicious  young  turkey 
from  Xew  Zealand,  a  ham  from  Virginia,  truffles,  a 
salad  of  lettuce  and  tomatoes,  and  a  plum  pudding  from 
London.  The  claret  was  1900  and  1904,  a  vintage  ob- 
tained by  Polonsky  in  Paris.  The  champagne,  also, 
was  of  a  year,  and  frapped.  Tahitian  coffee,  with 
brown  sugar  from  the  chief's  plantation,  ended  the  ban- 
quet. 

There  was  no  conversation  of  any  interest.  The  Pa- 
risian count  was  far  removed  in  experience  and  culture 
from  the  others,  and  probably  only  the  necessity  of 
companionship  in  revelry  and  cards  brought  them  to- 
gether. Europe,  and  all  the  earth,  was  his  playground, 
and  doubtless  he  had  lavished  a  fortune  in  pleasure  in 
the  capitals  of  the  Continent.  Llewellyn  had  an  edu- 
cation in  the  universities  of  England  and  Germany,  but 
since  young  manhood  had  been  in  his  birthplace,  and 
the  others  were  the  rough  and  ready  stuff  of  business 
or  seafaring. 

The  table  for  the  gambling  was  moved  to  the  sward 
by  the  shingle,  and  lamps  hung  upon  bamboos  planted 
at  each  end.  It  was  balmy,  and  we  sat  in  our  shirts,  the 
bosoms  open  for  the  breeze,  the  count  with  his  gorgeous 
Japanese  god  shining  upon  his  ivory  breast,  and  the 
round  glass  in  his  eye.  The  tattooed  skeleton  upon  his 
forearm  was  uncanny  in  the  flickering  light,  the  black 
shadows  of  the  eyes  seeming  to  open  and  close  as  the 
rays  fell  upon  it. 

Landers,  though  he  had  drunk  with  all,  was  appre- 
ciative of  every  nicety  of  the  game,  and  won  fifteen 
hundred  francs.  He  alone  was  cool,  watching  the 


300  MYSTIC  ISLES 

faces  of  the  players  at  every  crisis,  quick  to  detect  a 
weakness,  to  interpret  rightly  a  gesture  or  counting  of 
losses  and  gains,  remorselessly  hammering  home  his 
victories,  and  always  suave  and  generous  in  action. 

Llewellyn  would  withdraw  his  attention  to  listen  to 
the  himene  of  the  musicians  thirty  feet  away,  which  con- 
sisted mostly  of  familiar  American  airs,  interpolated 
with  bizarre  staves  and  dissonances.  One  caught  a  be- 
loved strain,  and  then  it  wandered  away  queerly  as  if 
the  musician  had  forgotten  the  score  and  had  done  hi& 
best  otherwise.  I  never  heard  in  Tahiti  one  air  of  Eu- 
rope or  America  played  through  as  composed,  without 
variation  or  omission,  except  the  national  anthem  of 
France. 

"They  are  happy,  those  boys,"  mused  Llewellyn. 
"They  get  more  out  of  life  than  we  do.  Why  should  we 
fool  with  these  cards  here  when  we  might  sing?" 

Llewellyn  was  only  a  quarter  Tahitian,  but  at  times 
the  island  blood  was  the  only  pulse  he  felt.  One  noticed 
it  especially  during  the  himenes,  when  he  seemed  to  wan- 
der far  from  the  business  in  hand.  That  business  being 
poker,  and  Landers  all  attention  to  the  cards  and  the 
psychology  of  his  antagonists,  every  time  Llewellyn 
harked  to  the  liimcne  he  lost  a  little,  and  when  he  became 
entangled  in  a  jackpot  of  size,  and  drew  too  many  cards 
on  account  of  his  abstraction,  he  was  mulcted  of  fifty 
francs  and  failed  of  winning  the  two  hundred  he  might 
have  won. 

"Unlucky  at  cards,  lucky  in  something  else,"  said  he, 
self -consolingly. 

"Ye  want  to  drop  that  other  thing  when  ye  Ye  play- 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  301 

ing  cards,"  McHenry  advised  as  he  scooped  in  the  pot. 
"The  cards  are  all  queens  to  you." 

Chief  Teriieroo  a  Teriieroterai  sat  ten  feet  removed 
from  the  players,  but  kept  his  eyes  on  the  money. 
They  played  with  notes,  five  francs  being  the  smallest, 
and  the  others  twenties  and  hundreds.  The  chief 
smiled  whenever  Count  Polonsky  drew  in  a  heap  of 
these,  and  when  one  fell  on  the  floor,  he  scrambled  under 
the  table  to  prevent  it  being  blown  on  the  rocks.  The 
Javanese  served  the  drinks,  and  a  crowd  of  natives 
watched  curiously  the  shifting  vantages  from  a  respect- 
ful distance. 

It  was  three  o'clock  when  the  scores  were  settled,  and, 
the  chief  leading  with  a  lantern,  we  tramped  through 
the  great  cocoanut-grove  to  his  residence. 

Landers  and  I  each  took  a  bed,  I  being  warned  to  be 
forehanded  by  my  experience  in  Moorea,  where  I  slept 
on  the  floor.  The  chief  retired,  and  Polonsky  went  off 
with  his  arm  about  his  inamorata's  waist,  she  having  ap- 
parently awaited  his  return.  When  Llewellyn  and 
McHenry  appeared  half  an  hour  later,  having  emptied 
a  bottle  reminiscent  to  McHenry  of  his  father's  liking 
for  Auld  Reekie,  they  were  discomfited  by  the  beds 
being  all  occupied,  the  other  two  having  been  early 
claimed  by  two  men  who  ate  and  drank  and  immediately 
slept. 

When  I  awoke,  the  sun  was  up  half  an  hour,  and 
Landers  and  I  went  for  a  bath  in  the  brook.  We  found 
a  pool  famed  in  the  legends  of  the  natives.  In  the 
olden  days  the  kings  and  chiefs  would  have  made  it 
tabu  to  themselves. 


302  MYSTIC  ISLES 

Landers  had  on  a  pareu  only,  his  two  hundred  and 
fifty  pounds  of  bone  and  muscle  a  refreshing  sight,  and 
his  eyes  as  bright  as  if  he  had  had  the  prescribed  eight 
hours.  They  looked  at  him,  sighingly,  the  young 
women  of  the  village,  even  at  this  hour  busied  cooking 
breadfruit  or  fish  and  coffee;  and  Landers  flirted  with 
each  one  and  in  Tahitian  called  out  words  which  made 
them  laugh,  and  sometimes  hide  their  heads  coquettishly. 

"I  dated  them  all,"  he  said  to  me  when  we  were  under 
the  water.  We  threw  off  our  garments  at  the  edge 
of  the  pool  and  plunged  in.  The  water  was  as  soft  as 
milk  and  as  clear  as  crystal,  cool  and  invigorating.  I 
drank  my  fill  of  it  as  I  swam. 

Breakfast  we  had  in  the  chief's  house,  the  remains  of 
the  amuraa  rahi  of  the  night  before.  The  chief  drank 
coffee  with  us,  and  when  we  had  gone  to  sit  on  the  ve- 
randa, his  eight  children  and  wife  took  the  board.  I 
talked  with  Teriieroo  a  Teriieroterai  for  half  an  hour 
in  French.  He  was  thirty-eight  years  old,  very  engag- 
ing, and  had  several  grandchildren. 

"Eh  bien"  he  said  to  my  question,  "I  will  tell  you. 
I  was  married  first  at  sixteen  years  of  age  and  this  is 
my  third  wife."  He  pointed  over  his  shoulder  to  a 
tow-headed  German  for  all  I  could  see,  and  who  cer- 
tainly showed  no  sign  of  the  native  except  in  her  dress 
and  manners  and  avoirdupois. 

"My  first  wife  died,"  continued  the  arii,  contempla- 
tively. "I  divorced  the  second,  and  the  third  is  just 
now  eating  the  first  dejeuner  in  that  room.  I  have 
eight  children,  and  will  have  twenty,  and  I  am  the  chief 
of  the  Papenoo  district,  but  this  is  not  the  place  of  my 
ancienne  famille.  I  was  appointed  here  by  the  French 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  303 

Governor  three  years  ago  to  administer  the  district, 
which  needed  a  strong  hand.  I  like  it,  and  have  bought 
land  and  built  this  house.  I  will  stay  my  days  here. 
There  is  the  farekau,  the  administration  building  where 
I  meet  the  people  and  we  have  conferences." 

He  pointed  to  a  wooden  cottage  near  by,  with  what 
looked  like  a  dancing-pavilion  attached.  There  the 
people  come  to  squat  upon  the  floor  and  relate  their 
grievances.  Most  of  the  disputes  before  minor  and 
major  courts  were  over  land  and  water  rights. 

It  was  half  past  seven  o'clock  when  we  inspanned  for 
the  trek  to  Papeete,  a  balmy,  brilliant  morning.  The 
banks  and  cliffs  were  masses  of  ferns,  the  living  imposed 
upon  the  dead,  and  hibiscus  and  gardenias  and  clumps 
of  bamboo  in  a  dissolving  pageant  mingled  with  plots 
of  taro  and  yams,  pineapples  and  bananas.  The  ma- 
jestic bread  trees  and  the  spreading  mangoes,  the  latter 
with  their  fruit  verging  from  gold  to  russet,  were  sur- 
mounted by  the  soaring  cocoanuts,  the  monarchs  of  the 
tropics,  whose  banners  fly  from  every  atoll,  and  fall 
only  before  the  most  terrible  might  of  the  King  of 
Storms. 

A  cocoanut-palm  bears  at  eight  years  and  when  about 
twenty-five  feet  high.  It  rises  seventy  or  eighty  feet, 
and  has  a  hundred  curves.  It  is  the  wily  creature  of  the 
winds,  but  outwits  them  in  all  but  their  worst  moods. 
To  the  tropical  man  the  cocoa-palm  is  life  and  luxury. 
He  drinks  the  milk  and  eats  the  meat,  or  sells  it  dried 
for  making  soaps  and  emollients  and  other  things;  the 
oil  he  lights  his  house  with  and  rubs  upon  his  body  to 
assuage  pain;  he  builds  his  houses  and  wharves  of  it,  and 
thatches  his  home  with  the  husks,  which  also  serve  for 


304  MYSTIC  ISLES 

fuel,  fiber  for  lines  and  dresses  and  hats,  leaves  for 
canoe-sails  and  the  shell  of  the  nut  for  his  goblet.  Its 
roots  he  fashions  into  household  utensils.  The  cocoa 
grows  where  other  edibles  perish.  It  dips  its  bole  in 
the  salt  tide,  and  will  not  thrive  removed  from  its  be- 
loved sea. 

To  me  there  is  an  inexpressible  sentiment  in  the  pres- 
ence of  these  cocoa-palms.  They  are  the  symbol  of  the 
simplicity  and  singleness  of  the  eternal  summer  of  the 
tropics;  the  staff  and  gonfalons  of  the  dominion  of  the 
sun.  My  heart  leaps  at  their  sight  when  long  away. 
They  are  the  dearest  result  of  seed  and  earth.  I  drink 
their  wine  and  esteem  dwelling  in  their  sight  a  rare  com- 
munion with  the  best  of  nature. 

They  joked  Count  Polonsky  about  his  girl,  and  he 
began  to  explain. 

"I  was  here  a  year  before  I  found  one  that  suited  me," 
he  said  as  he  rode  beside  the  wagon.  "I  don't  love  her, 
nor  she  me,  but  I  pay  her  well,  and  ask  only  physical 
fidelity  for  my  physical  safety.  Her  father  is  prac- 
tical and  influential,  and  will  help  me  with  my  plans  for 
development  of  the  Papenoo  valley,  which  I  have 
bought." 

Three  tall  and  robust  natives  in  pareus  of  red  and  yel- 
low, and  carrying  long  spears,  went  by,  accompanied  by 
a  dozen  dogs.  We  stopped  them,  and  they  said  they 
were  from  the  Papara  district  on  their  way  to  hunt  pig 
in  the  Papenoo  Mountains  for  Count  Polonsky.  The 
latter  remembered  he  had  ordered  such  a  hunt,  and  ex- 
plained through  Llewellyn  that  he  was  their  employer. 

They  faced  him,  and  seldom  was  greater  contrast. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  305 

Magnificent  semi-savages,  clothed  in  only  a  rag,  their 
powerful  muscles  responsive  to  every  demand  of  their 
minds,  and  health  glowing  in  their  laughing  counte- 
nances :  Polonsky,  slight,  bent,  baldish,  arrayed  in  Paris 
fashions,  a  figure  from  the  Bois  de  Boulogne,  his  glass 
screwed  in  his  weak  eye,  the  other  myopic,  teeth  missing, 
and  face  pale.  But  at  his  command  they  hunted,  for 
he  had  that  which  they  craved,  the  money  of  civilization, 
to  buy  its  toys  and  poisons.  Polonsky  had  a  reputa- 
tion for  generous  dealing. 

A  bent  native  man  repairing  the  road  near  Faaripoo 
had  his  face  swathed  in  bandages.  He  greeted  us  with 
the  courteous,  "la  ora  na!"  but  did  not  lift  his  head. 

"He  is  a  leper,"  said  Llewellyn.  "I  have  seen  him 
for  years  on  this  road.  He  may  not  be  here  many  more 
days,  because  they  are  segregating  the  lepers.  The 
Government  has  built  a  lazaretto  for  them  up  that 
road." 

We  saw  a  group  of  little  houses  a  short  distance  re- 
moved from  the  road.  They  were  fenced  in  and  had  an 
institutional  look. 

"There  's  hundreds  of  lepers  in  Tahiti,"  remarked 
McHenry. 

"Mac,  you  're  a  damned  liar,"  replied  Llewellyn. 
He  was  an  overlord  in  manner  when  with  natives,  but 
his  quarter  aboriginal  blood  caused  the  least  aspersion 
on  them  by  others  to  touch  him  on  the  raw. 

"Well,  there  's  a  bloody  lot  o'  them,"  broke  in  Lying 
Bill. 

"Eighty  only,"  stated  Llewellyn,  conclusively.  "The 
Government  has  taken  a  census,  and  they  're  all  to  be 


306  MYSTIC  ISLES 

brought  here.  Did  you  hear  that  Tissot  left  for  Raiatea 
when  he  heard  of  the  census?  He  's  a  leper  and  a  white 
man.  They  seized  young  Briand  yesterday." 

I  was  astonished,  because  the  latter  had  lived  opposite 
the  Tiare  Hotel,  and  I  had  met  him  often  at  the  bar- 
ber's. I  had  been  "next"  to  him  at  Marechal's  shop  a 
week  before. 

"He  did  not  know  he  was  a  leper  until  they  examined 
him,"  Llewellyn  went  on.     "He  does  not  know  how  he 
contracted  the  disease.     I  don't  mind  it.     I  am  not 
afraid.     You  get  used  to  it.     I  tell  you,  the  only  leper 
I  ever  knew  that  made  me  cry  was  a  kid.     I  used  to  see 
on  the  porch  of  a  house  on  the  road  to  Papara  from 
Papeete  a  big  doll.     A  little  leper  girl  owned  it,  and  she 
was  ashamed  to  be  seen  outside  her  home,  so  she  put 
on  the  veranda  the  doll  she  loved  best  to  greet  her 
friends.     She  made  out  that  the  doll  was  really  herself, 
and  she  loved  to  listen  when  those  who  might  have  been 
playmates  talked  to  the  doll  and  fondled  it.     She  lived 
for  and  in  the  doll,  and  those  who  cherished  the  little 
girl  saw  that  each  Christmas  the  doll  was  exchanged  se- 
cretly  for  a  bigger  one,  keeping  pace  with  the  growth 
of  the  child.     I  have  caressed  it  and  sung  to  it,  and 
guessed  that  the  child  was  peeping  and  listening  inside. 
She  herself  never  touched  it,  for  it  would  be  like  picking 
up  one's  own  self.     Each  Christmas  she  saw  herself 
born  again,  for  the  old  dolls  were  burned  without  her 
knowledge.     And  all  the  time  her  own  little  body  was 
falling  to  pieces.     Last  Christmas  she  was  carried  to  the 
door  to  see  the  new  doll.     I  bought  it  for  her,  and  I  had 
in  it  a  speaking-box,  to  say  'Bon  jour!'     I  sent  to  Paris 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  307 

for  it.     She  's  dead  now,  poor  little  devil,  or  they  'd  have 
shut  her  up  in  the  lazaretto." 

Bemis  bought  cocoanuts  for  shipment  for  food  pur- 
poses. His  firm  sold  them  all  over  America  to  fruit- 
dealers  for  eating  raw  by  children,  and  shredded  and 
prepared  them  for  confectioners  and  grocers.  He  was 
the  only  buyer  in  Tahiti  of  fresh  nuts,  as  all  others  pur- 
chased them  as  copra,  split  and  dried,  for  the  oil. 
Bemis  had  been  here  years  ago,  he  said. 

"I  'm  married  now,"  he  told  me,  "but  in  those  days 
I  was  a  damn  fool  about  the  Tahitian  girls.  I  put  in 
six  months  here  before  I  was  married." 

He  became  thoughtful,  and  asked  me  to  accompany 
him  to  the  soiree  of  the  Alliance  Fran9aise,  in  the  Palais 
cinema-hall.  The  Alliance  was  for  encouraging  the 
study  and  use  of  the  French  language.  A  few  decades 
ago  Admiral  Serre,  the  governor,  had  forbidden  the 
teaching  of  French  to  girls  in  the  country  districts  as 
hurtful  to  their  moral  weal.  It  was  feared  that  they 
would  seek  to  air  their  learning  in  Papeete,  and,  as  said 
Admiral  Serre,  be  corrupted.  A  new  regime  reckoned 
a  knowledge  of  French  a  requisite  of  patriotism. 

At  the  Palais  the  scene  was  brilliant.  Two  large 
banana-trees  were  apparently  growing  at  the  sides  of 
the  stage,  and  the  pillars  of  the  roof  were  wreathed  in 
palm-leaves.  Scores  of  French  flags  draped  the  walls. 
Pupils  of  the  government  schools  occupied  many  seats, 
and  their  families,  friends,  and  officials  the  others.  The 
galleries  were  filled  with  native  children.  Marao,  the 
former  queen,  and  her  daughters,  the  Princesses  Boots 
and  Tekau,  with  a  party  of  English  acquaintances,  were 


308  MYSTIC  ISLES 

in  front,  and  the  general  audience  consisted  of  French 
and  everjr  caste  of  Tahitian,  from  half  to  a  sixteenth. 
The  men  were  in  white  evening  suits,  and  the  women 
and  girls  in  decollete  gowns,  white  and  colored. 

It  was  eight  o'clock  when  the  governor  entered  on  the 
arm  of  the  president  of  the  Alliance,  Dr.  Cassiou.  He 
was  in  a  white  drill  uniform,  with  deep  cuffs  of  gold  bul- 
lion, and  a  blazing  row  of  orders  on  his  breast.  The 
r&publique  outdoes  many  monarchies  in  decorating  with 
these  baubles  its  heroes  of  politics.  The  governor,  a 
wholesome-looking  diplomat,  was  the  image  of  the  fa- 
mous host  of  the  Old  Poodle  Dog  restaurant  in  San 
Francisco,  who  himself  would  have  had  a  hundred  rib- 
bons in  a  just  democracy. 

The  band  of  native  musicians  played  "The  MarseiK 
laise,"  but  nobody  stood.  With  all  their  embellish- 
ments, the  French  would  not  incommode  themselves  at 
the  whim  of  a  baton-wielder,  who  in  America  had  only 
to  wave  his  stick  in  "The  Star-Spangled  Banner,"  and 
any  one  who  did  not  humor  his  whim  by  getting  on  his 
feet  was  beaten  by  his  neighbors,  who  would  not  suffer 
without  him. 

With  the  governor  were  the  inspecteiirs  colonials,  the 
bearded  napkin-wearers  of  Lovaina's.  They,  too,  had 
a  line  of  gay  ribbon  from  nipple  to  nipple.  These  three 
and  the  bonier ardicr,  the  gay  secretary,  sat  upon  the 
stage  beside  a  stack  of  gilded  red  books.  The  band 
played  "La  Croix  d'Honneur,"  and  the  good  Dr.  Cas- 
siou read  from  a  manuscript  his  annual  address  in  a  low 
voice  becoming  a  ministrant  at  sick-beds.  Another 
piece  by  the  band,  and  the  books  were  distributed  to  the 
pupils,  who  went  tremulously  upon  the  stage  to  receive 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  3<M> 

them  from  the  governor's  hand.  This  was  a  lengthy 
process,  but  each  child  had  a  claque,  which  communi- 
cated enthusiasm  to  the  others  of  the  audience,  and 
there  was  continuous  clapping. 

"Les  Cadets  de  Russie"  by  the  band  preceded  the 
allocution  by  the  governor.  He  also  spoke  sotto  voce, 
as  if  to  himself,  and  as  no  one  heard  his  words,  the  fans 
of  native  straw  and  Chinese  turkey  feathers  were  plied 
incessantly.  The  heat  was  oppressive.  A  sigh  of  re- 
lief came  with  the  entr'acte,  when  all  the  grown  folk 
flocked  to  the  attached  saloon.  I  joined  the  queen's 
group  for  a  few  moments,  and  drank  champagne  with 
her  and  her  daughters,  and  I  was  called  over  to  have  a 
glass  of  Perrier  Jouet  with  the  governor's  party.  Most 
of  the  natives  drank  bottled  lemonade  from  the  glacerie 
at  five  sous  a  bottle.  The  queen  wore  a  rose  in  her  hair. 
She  was  very  large,  with  almost  a  man's  face,  shrewd, 
heavy,  determined,  and  yet  lively,  and  without  a  shade 
of  pretense.  Her  walk  was  singularly  majestic,  and 
was  often  commented  upon. 

The  Princess  Tekau  was  beautiful,  quite  like  a  Span- 
ish senorita  in  color  and  feature,  her  ivory  skin  gleaming 
against  a  pale-blue  bodice,  and  her  blue-black  hair 
piled  high.  We  talked  French  or  English,  with  many 
Tahitian  words  thrown  in,  according  to  the  mood  or 
need  of  the  moment.  Every  one  was  laughing.  After 
all,  Tahiti  was  very  simple,  and  even  officialdom  could 
not  import  aristocracy  or  stiffness  into  a  climate  where 
starch  melted  before  one  could  impress  a  spectator. 

The  inspecteurs  and  others  of  the  suite  had  smiles  and 
quips  for  humbler  girls  than  princesses.  I  saw  one  of 
the  awesome  whiskerandos  from  Paris,  haughty  and 


310  MYSTIC  ISLES 

secretive  toward  the  French,  lighting  the  cigarette  of  a 
blanchisseuse  at  the  Pool  of  Psyche,  his  arm  about  her, 
and  his  black  bristles  nearer  than  necessary  to  her  ripe 
mouth.  A  merchant  dining  away  from  home  slapped 
caressingly  the  hips  of  the  girls  who  waited  upon  him, 
nor  concealed  his  gestures.  Hypocrisy  had  lost  her 
shield  in  Tahiti,  because,  except  among  a  few  aged  per- 
sons, and  the  pastors,  she  was  not  a  virtue,  as  in  Amer- 
ica and  England,  but  a  hateful  vice. 

Back  again  in  the  Palais,  cooled  and  made  receptive 
to  music  by  the  joyous  quarter  of  an  hour  in  the  buffet, 
we  heard  Mme.  Gautier  sing  "Le  Cid,"  by  Massenet, 
and  the  Princess  Tekau  accompany  her  effectively  on 
the  piano.  A  solo  de  piston,  a  violin,  a  flute,  all  played 
by  Tahitians,  entertained  us,  and  then  came  the  fun. 

M.  X was  down  for  a  monologue.  Who  could  it 

be?  He  bounced  on  the  stage  in  a  Prince- Albert  coat 
and  a  Derby  hat,  rollicking,  truculent,  plainly  exhilar- 
ated. Why,  it  was  M.  Lontane  in  disguise,  the  second 
in  command  of  the  police,  the  hero  of  the  battle  of  the 
limes,  the  coal,  and  the  potatoes.  He  gave  a  side-split- 
ting burlesque  of  the  conflict.  He  acted  the  drunken 
stoker,  the  man  who  would  write  to  "The  Times"  when 
M.  Lontane  placed  his  pistol  at  his  stomach,  and  he 
made  us  see  the  fruit  and  coal  flying.  It  was  all  good 
natured,  and  his  dialogue  (monologue)  amusing.  We 
saw  how  we  Anglo-Saxons  appeared  to  the  French,  and 
learned  how  the  hoarse  growl  of  the  British  sailor 
sounded. 

The  governor  was  delighted,  the  inspccteurs  also. 
The  officials  took  their  cue,  the  entire  audience  laughed, 
and  the  galleries  of  children,  not  understanding  at  all, 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  31) 

but  convulsed  at  the  antics  of  the  head  policeman,  yelled 
encore.  The  British  consul  grinned,  and  the  governor 
turned  and  winked  at  him.  The  entente  cordiale  was 
cemented  again.  The  second  in  command,  who  pro- 
voked the  sundering  of  the  tie,  had  reunited  it  by  his 
comicality.  Ire  dissolved  in  glee. 

A  play  followed,  in  which  several  of  the  players  were 
in  the  audience,  and  in  which  my  barber,  M.  Bontet, 
shone,  and  moving-pictures  followed.  The  babies  were 
long  asleep,  and  we  yawning  when  we  were  dismissed 
at  half  past  twelve. 

Bemis,  the  cocoanut-buyer,  sat  through  the  entr'acte, 
not  accompanying  me  to  the  buffet.  He  received  a 
shock  during  the  handing  out  of  the  premiums  and  was 
silent  afterward.  Bemis  was  a  striking  man,  because 
the  very  regular  features  of  his  young  face  were  set 
off  by  a  mass  of  white  hair.  He  was  placid,  without  a 
disturbing  intellect,  and  interested  solely  in  the  price 
and  condition  of  fresh  cocoanuts  for  shipment.  I  had 
seen  him  start  when  a  little  girl  of  distinctive  expression 
was  called  to  the  stage  to  receive  her  book.  She  sat 
with  her  mother  and  putative  father,  and  their  other 
children.  When  I  first  saw  her,  I  pulled  his  arm. 

"Bemis,"  I  said,  "for  heaven's  sake,  look  at  that 
girl!" 

He  looked,  and  his  face  tensed,  growing  ashen  white. 
"She  's  th«  image  of  you,  Bemis,"  I  pursued. 

"For  God's  sake,  talk  low!"  he  cautioned.  "People 
are  rubbering  at  me  now.  She  is  mine,  I  'm  sure.  I 
was  here  six  months  a  dozen  years  ago  and  had  an 
affair  with  her  mother,  who  sits  there.  What  can  I 
do?  I  have  my  own  at  home  in  Oakland.  I  could  not 


312  MYSTIC  ISLES 

tell.  I  never  knew  about  that  girl  until  a  week  ago. 
She  does  n't  know  me.  I  saw  her  on  the  Broom  Road, 
so  I  came  to-night  to  have  a  good  look  at  her.  I  was 
afraid  to  come  alone.  It  would  do  no  good  for  me  to 
tell  her.  She 's  taken  care  of .  She 's  lovely,  is  n't  she? 
I  'd  like  to  take  her  in  my  arms  once." 

We  walked  to  the  Annexe. 

"I  '11  tell  you,"  he  resumed.  "I  can't  blame  myself. 
I  was  like  any  young  fellow  who  comes  down  here, — I 
was  n't  more  than  twenty-five, — but  I  feel  like  hell. 
That  child's  face  is  almost  identical,  except  for  color, 
with  my  baby  of  eight  or  nine  at  home.  I  'm  afraid  I  '11 
see  it  at  night  when  I  go  back." 

On  the  trees,  which  carry  all  the  public  announce- 
ments, appeared  a  notice  of  a  concert  by  the  local  band : 

Fanfare  de  Papeete 

Le  public  est  informe  la  Fanfare  donnera  son 
Concert  sur  la  Place  du  Gouvernement  Mardi  Soir  a  8  heures, 

RETRAITE 

aux  Flambeaux ! 

All  day  it  rained,  but  at  seven  a  myriad  of  stars  were 
in  the  sky.  The  Place  du  Gouvernement  is  a  large 
lawn  between  the  group  of  buildings  devoted  to  admin- 
istrative affairs,  with  seats  for  several  score,  but  not  for 
the  hundreds  who  attended  the  band  concert.  The  no- 
tice about  the  flambeaux  drew  even  the  few  boys  and 
youths  who  might  not  have  come  for  the  music. 

In  the  center  of  the  lawn  was  a  kiosk,  and  on  the  four 
sides  the  rue  de  Rivoli,  the  garden  of  the  Cercle  Mili- 
taire,  the  grounds  of  the  former  palace  of  the  Pomares, 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  313 

now  the  executive  offices,  and  the  pavilion  of  the  Re- 
vues. 

I  went  early  when  the  lights  were  being  turned  on. 
Only  the  sellers  of  wreaths  had  arrived,  and  they  seated 
themselves  along  the  square,  their  ferns  and  flowers  on 
the  ground  beside  them.  Then  came  the  venders  of 
sweets,  ice-cream,  and  peanuts,  and  soon  the  band  and 
the  throng. 

An  allegro  broke  upon  the  air,  and  stilled  for  a  mo- 
ment the  chatter.  Most  of  the  people  stood  or  strolled 
in  twos  or  dozens.  They  bought  wreaths  and  placed 
them  on  their  bare  heads,  while  the  few  who  wore  hats 
encircled  them  with  the  brilliant  greens  and  blossoms. 
Bevies  of  handsome  girls  and  women  in  their  prettiest 
tunics,  many  wearing  Chinese  silk  shawls  of  blue  or 
pink,  their  hair  tied  with  bright  ribbons,  sat  on  the 
benches  or  grouped  about  the  confectionery-stands. 
Many  carriages  and  automobiles  were  parked  in  the 
shadows,  holding  the  more  reserved  citizens — the  gov- 
ernor, the  royal  family,  the  bishop,  the  clergy,  and  dig- 
nified matrons  of  girth. 

The  bachelors  and  male  coquets  of  the  Tahitianstand 
French,  with  a  sprinkling  of  all  the  foreigners  in  Pa- 
peete, the  officers  and  crews  of  the  war-ship  Zelee  and 
sailing  vessels,  smoked  and  endeavored  to  segregate  va- 
liines  who  appealed  to  them.  The  dark  procureur  gen- 
eral from  Martinique  had  an  eye  for  beauty,  and  the 
private  secretary  of  the  governor  was  in  his  most  gallant 
mood,  a  rakish  cloth  hat  with  a  feather,  a  silver-headed 
stick,  a  suit  of  tight-fitting  black,  and  a  tiare  Tahiti  over 
his  ear,  marking  him  among  the  other  Lotharios. 

The  band  was  led  by  a  tall,  impressive  native  who  both 


314  MYSTIC  ISLES 

beat  and  hummed  the  airs  to  guide  the  others.  A  tune 
ended,  the  bandsmen  hurried  to  mix  with  the  audience, 
to  smoke  and  flirt.  The  shading  acacia-trees  lining  the 
avenues  permitted  privacy  for  embraces,  kisses,  for 
making  engagements,  and  for  the  singing  of  chansons 
and  himenes  of  scandalous  import.  Better  than  the 
Latin,  the  Tahitian  likes  direct  words  and  candor  in 
song. 

French  naval  officers  and  sailors  passed  and  repassed, 
or  sought  the  obscurity  of  the  mangoes  or  the  acacias. 
One  heard  the  sibilance  of  kisses,  the  laughter,  and  the 
banter,  the  half-serious  blows  and  scoldings  of  the 
vahines  who  repelled  over-bold  sailors.  In  an  hour  the 
sedate  and  the  older  took  leave;  the  governor  and  the 
procureur  turned  into  the  Cercle  Militaire  for  whist  or 
ecarte  and  a  glass  of  wine,  the  carriages  withdrew,  and 
the  band's  airs  and  manner  of  playing  took  on  a  new 
freedom  and  abandon.  A  polka  was  begun,  and  cou- 
ples danced  upon  the  grass,  the  ladies  in  their  peignoirs, 
their  black  hair  floating,  and  their  lips  chanting,  their 
wreaths  and  flowers  nodding  to  their  motions. 

In  retired  nooks  where  the  lamp-lights  did  not  pene- 
trate ardent  ones  threw  themselves  into  the  postures 
and  agitations  of  the  upaupa,  the  hula. 

Boys  now  began  to  light  the  flambeaux  for  the  re- 
traite.  These  were  large  bundles  of  cocoanut-husks 
and  candlenuts  soaked  in  oil,  and  they  gave  a  generous 
flare.  Suddenly,  we  heard  the  mairie-bell  tolling. 
The  band-leader  climbed  upon  the  roof  of  the  kiosk, 
descended,  and  gave  a  vigorous  beat  upon  the  air  for 
"the  Marseillaise,"  which  ends  all  concerts. 

It  was  quickly  over,  and  seizing  the  flambeaux,  all 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  315 

rushed  from  the  Place  du  Gouvernement,  lighting  the 
way  of  the  retraite,  now  more  furious  even  than  planned. 
The  band  struck  up,  "There  '11  be  a  Hot  Time  in  the 
Old  Town  To-night,"  the  drum  and  bugle  made  warlike 
notes,  and  down  the  rue  de  Rivoli  we  went  madly  to- 
ward the  conflagration  sighted  by  the  leader.  After 
the  band  and  the  flambeaux-bearers  danced  the  jolly 
commoners,  with  here  and  there  a  more  important  pair 
of  legs,  an  English  clerk,  a  tourist,  or  an  official,  all  ex- 
cited by  the  music,  the  torches,  and  the  running  to  the 
fire.  The  flambeaux  reeled  to  and  fro  with  the  skip- 
ping and  leaping  of  their  carriers,  the  multitude  sang 
loudly,  and  the  music  became  broken  as  the  leader  lost 
control  of  his  men.  They  came  to  the  house  of  the 
hose-cart,  and  transformed  themselves  into  firemen,  lay- 
ing down  their  instruments  and  harnessing  themselves 
to  the  lines.  Away  we  went  again,  now  at  top  speed. 
Other  carts  with  apparatus  dashed  into  the  Broom 
Road  from  side  streets  and  caught  up  with  us. 

The  pullers  yelled  warnings  in  Tahitian  to  those  who 
might  impede  their  way  or  be  run  over.  The  stir  was 
tremendous,  for  fires  were  rare  and  greatly  feared. 
The  regulations  of  the  possession  and  storage  of  com- 
bustibles were  severe,  even  a  wagon  or  handcart  con- 
taining as  little  as  one  can  of  kerosene  being  compelled 
to  fly  a  red  flag. 

After  a  mile  we  came  to  the  fire,  a  Chinese  restaurant 
beside  a  little  creek  and  in  a  cocoanut-grove.  The  roof 
had  fallen  in  and  there  were  reports  that  a  woman  and 
two  children  had  been  killed.  Two  men  with  quart 
cans  threw  water  from  the  stream  on  the  edge  of  the 
blaze. 


316  MYSTIC  ISLES 

The  little  hose-carts,  with  a  small  ladder,  arrived  with 
eclat,  native  gendarmes  clearing  the  road,  and  French- 
men and  natives  shouting  the  danger  of  death  by  these 
formidable  engines.  They  were  of  no  purpose,  the 
water-taps  which  were  conspicuous  in  the  main  streets 
being  absent  here,  and  no  water  under  pressure  was 
available.  They  knew  this,  of  course,  but  the  hose  was 
unreeled,  and  a  dozen  people  tripped  up  by  its  snake- 
like  movements,  the  while  bandsmen  and  gendarmes 
roared  out  manoeuvers.  By  now  a  thousand  were  there. 
I  counted  roughly  several  hundred  bicycles  and  two  pub- 
lic automobiles,  holding  thirty  persons  each,  came  from 
the  center  of  town,  the  enterprising  owners  canvassing 
the  coffee-shops  and  saloons  for  passengers.  These 
carryalls  drew  up  by  the  stream  within  forty  feet  of  the 
blaze,  forcing  the  pedestrians  and  cyclists  to  retreat. 

Lovaina  appeared,  puffing  furiously.  Vava  was 
roused  to  a  high  pitch.  He  told  me  by  signs  how  he  had 
seen  the  fire  and  given  the  alarm  to  the  mairie,  or  city 
hall,  the  bell  of  which  tolled  for  an  hour. 

There  was  no  wind,  and  the  flames  rose  straight  up, 
scorching  the  cocoanut-leaves,  but  unharming  other 
houses  within  twenty-five  feet.  The  crowd  lingered 
until  the  last  timber  had  fallen.  After  seeing  that  there 
was  small  danger  to  the  adjoining  buildings,  and  learn- 
ing that  the  loss  fell  upon  Chinese  only,  that  no  one  had 
been  hurt,  and  that  a  can  of  kerosene  had  exploded,  in- 
terest in  the  conflagration  dropped,  and  friends  and  ac- 
quaintances who  had  met  chatted  amiably  on  other  sub- 
jects. The  proximity  of  the  fire  and  the  marshy  con- 
dition of  the  ground  made  it  proper  for  the  ladies  with 
well-turned  legs  to  raise  their  gowns  high,  displaying 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  317 

garterless  stockings  held  up  by  the  "native  twist"  above 
the  calf.  Accordions  and  mouth-organs  enlivened  the 
talk,  and  not  until  only  charred  boards  remained  did  we 
leave. 

Besides  the  occasional  concerts  of  the  band,  boxing 
and  moving-pictures  made  up  the  public  night  life  of 
Papeete.  Attached  to  the  theaters  were  bars,  as  at  the 
Palais,  and  these  were  the  foci  of  those  who  hunted  dis- 
traction, and  the  trysting-places  of  the  amorous.  One 
found  in  them  or  flitting  about  them  all  the  Tahitian  or 
part  Tahitian  girls  in  Papeete  who  were  not  kept  from 
them  by  higher  ambition  or  by  a  strict  family  rule. 
From  Moorea,  Raiatea,  Bora-Bora,  and  other  islands, 
and  from  the  rural  districts  of  Tahiti,  drifted  the  fairest 
who  pursued  pleasure,  and  to  these  cafes  went  the  male 
tourists,  the  gayer  traders,  the  sailors,  and  the  Tahitian 
men  of  city  ways,  the  chauffeurs,  clerks,  and  officials. 

Boxing  and  cinemas  were  novelties  in  Tahiti,  and 
though  the  bars  were  only  adjuncts  of  the  shows,  they 
had  become  the  scenes  of  a  hectic  life  quite  different 
from  former  days.  The  groves,  the  beach,  and  the 
homes  were  less  frequented  for  merrymaking,  the  white 
having  brought  his  own  comparatively  new  customs  of 
men  and  women  drinking  together  in  public  houses. 
And  there  had  crept  in  on  a  small  scale  an  exploitation 
of  beauty  by  those  who  profited  by  the  receipts  at  the 
prize-fights,  the  cinemas,  and  the  bars.  The  French  or 
part  castes  who  owned  these  attractions  were  copying 
the  cruder  methods  of  the  Chinese. 

Llewellyn,  David,  and  McHenry  were  habitues  of 
these  resorts,  and  I  not  an  infrequent  visitor.  We  went 
together  to  a  prize-fight,  which  had  been  well  advertised. 


318  MYSTIC  ISLES 

A  small  boy  with  a  gong  handed  me  a  bill  on  the  rue  du 
Four,  which  read : 

Casino  de  Tahiti 
Ce  Soir  Vendredi 

Pour  le  championnat  des  Etablissements  francais  de  1'Oceanie 
Grand  Match  de  Boxe     Great  Boxing  Match     Moto  Raa  rahi 
Entre  MM.  Between  MM.  i  rotopu  ia 

Opeta  (Raratonga)     &     Teaea  (Mataiea) 

10  Rounds 
Moni  parahiraa  Ire  2f.  50         2me  2f.          3me  If.  50 

The  bill  said  further  in  French  and  Tahitian  that  this 
was  to  be  the  climax  of  all  ring  battles  in  the  South  Seas 
between  natives,  the  Christchurch  Kid  and  Cowan,  the 
bridegroom,  being  hors  concours. 

Every  seat  was  reserved  by  noon.  All  day  the  auto- 
mobile stages  ran  into  the  country  districts  to  bring 
natives,  and  from  Moorea  came  boat-loads  of  spectators. 
On  the  streets  native  youths  emulated  the  combatants, 
and  at  every  corner  boys  were  at  fisticuffs.  The  Casino 
de  Tahiti  was  on  the  rue  de  Rivoli,  a  large  wooden  shed 
painted  in  polychromatic  tints,  and  with  a  gallery  open 
to  the  air  for  the  band,  which  played  an  hour  before  all 
events  to  summon  patrons.  Groups  were  in  the  street 
by  eight  o'clock,  many  having  been  unable  to  buy  seats, 
and  others  there  merely  to  hear  the  music  and  to  laugh. 
Many  were  Chinese,  queueless,  smartly  dressed  in  con- 
ventional white  suits  and  American  straw  hats.  The 
storekeepers  had  come  in  from  the  country.  The  men 
heatedly  discussed  the  merits  of  the  boxers.  Opeta  of 
Raratonga  was  mentioned  as  the  champion  of  the  world 
— this  part  of  it. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  319 

Smoking  was  not  allowed  inside,  so  not  until  the  last 
moment  did  the  men  file  in.  Hundreds  of  women  were 
long  in  their  places,  some  white,  many  part  white,  and 
others  Tahitians.  They  were  in  their  best  gowns,  flirt- 
ing, eating  fruit  and  nuts,  laughing,  and  talking. 
Every  girl  of  the  Tiare  Hotel  was  there,  and  all  the 
guests.  I  was  wedged  in  between  Lovaina  and  Atupu, 
and  the  latter  stroked  my  leg  often,  as  one  does  a  cat  or 
dog,  affectionately,  but  without  much  thought  about  it. 
Lovaina,  too,  rubbed  my  back  from  time  to  time. 

A  picture  preceded  the  fight.  It  was  of  cow-boys, 
robbers,  and  the  Wild  West,  with  much  shooting.  A 
half-caste  explained  it,  and  his  wit  was  considerable, 
tickling  the  ears  as  the  scenes  tickled  the  eyes.  The 
natives  applauded  or  execrated  the  films  as  the  Parisians 
do  at  the  opera.  They  encouraged  the  heroes  and 
cursed  the  villains.  Lovaina  was  interested,  but  said: 

"Those  robber  in  picshur  make  all  boy  bad.  The  gov- 
ernor he  say  that  maybe  he  stop  that  Bill  'Art  kind  of 
picshur.  Some  Tahiti  boy  steal  horse  and  throw  rope 
on  other  boy  for  lassoo." 

When  the  screen  was  removed,  a  roped  enclosure,  a 
square  "ring,"  was  disclosed.  The  announcer  spoke  in 
Tahitian  of  the  signal  achievements  of  the  two  fighters, 
of  their  determination  to  do  their  best  then  and  there. 
The  women  cheered  these  declarations.  Seated  just 
below  me  was  a  red-headed  French  girl,  with  perhaps  a 
slight  infusion  of  Polynesian  blood,  who  had  a  baby  in 
a  perambulator.  Her  strawberry  plaits  dangled  tempt- 
ingly as  she  cooed  to  the  baby.  She  was  for  Opeta,  the 
foreign  competitor. 


320  MYSTIC  ISLES 

A  white-haired  Australian  woman,  with  a  strong  ac- 
cent, favored  Teaea,  and  when  the  Raratonga  youth  was 
winning,  shouted  to  Teaea: 

"  'It  'im  'arder,  OF  Peet!  'E's  outa  wind!  Knock 
'is  shell  hoffl" 

The  Casino  de  Tahiti  had  two  galleries,  and  in  the 
topmost,  at  a  franc,  five  sous  each,  sat  the  little  gods,  as 
with  us.  Others  were  perched  on  doors,  on  projections 
of  cornices,  and  in  every  nook. 

The  fighters  were  naked  except  for  breech-clouts. 
They  were  barefooted.  They  wore  their  hair  longish, 
and  it  appeared  like  rough,  black  caps,  which  now  and 
again  fell  over  their  faces  and  was  flung  back  by  a  toss 
of  their  heads.  They  were  handsome  men,  framed  sym- 
metrically, lithe,  and  healthy-looking.  Their  bodies 
soon  shone  with  the  sweat.  Their  eyes,  as  soft  as  velvet 
to  begin,  grew  fiery  as  they  punished  each  other.  In 
truth,  this  punishment  was  not  severe  from  American 
prize-ring  standards.  The  islander  was  unused  to 
blows,  and  the  gloves  were  of  the  biggest  size,  such  as 
those  worn  by  business  men  in  gymnasiums. 

Opeta  had  as  seconds  American  beach-combers;  and 
Teaea,  natives.  They  had  all  the  pugilistic  appurte- 
nances of  towels,  bottles,  etcetera,  and  fanned  and 
rubbed  their  men  between  rounds  as  if  they  were 
matched  for  a  fortune. 

Teaea  had  a  green  ribbon  in  his  loin-cloth.  He  was 
taller  and  heavier  than  Opeta,  but  showed  his  inferiority 
quickly.  They  danced  about  and  fiddled  for  an  open- 
ing, sparred  for  wind,  and  did  all  the  fancy  footwork  of 
the  fifth-class  fighter,  but  they  seldom  came  together 
except  in  clinches.  The  referee,  the  Christchurch  Kid. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  321 

was  the  martyr,  for  he  had  to  pull  them  apart  every 
minute.  The  rounds  were  of  two  minutes'  duration, 
and  the  rests  one  minute.  After  seven  very  tame 
rounds,  the  spectators  became  angered,  and  in  the  eighth 
Teaea  went  down,  and  took  the  count  of  ten  on  his  hands 
and  feet,  warily  watching  his  opponent.  In  the  ninth, 
Opeta,  excited  by  the  demands  of  the  gallery,  slugged 
him  in  the  head.  Teaea  sought  the  boards  again,  and 
the  counting  of  ten  by  the  referee  began. 

The  Mataiea  boxer  was  on  his  back,  but  his  glazing 
eyes  stared  reproachfully  at  Opeta.  The  latter,  now 
clearly  the  victor,  glanced  at  the  red-headed  girl,  who 
was  dancing  on  the  floor  beside  her  perambulator  and 
waving  her  congratulations.  The  house  was  on  its  feet 
yelling  wildly  to  Teaea  to  rise.  Those  who  had  bet  on 
him  were  calling  him  a  knave  and  a  coward,  while 
Opeta's  backers  were  imploring  him  to  kill  Teaea  if  he 
stood  up.  The  Raratonga  champion  became  excited, 
confused  and  when  Teaea,  at  the  call  of  eight,  cautiously 
turned  over  and  lifted  his  head,  he  struck  him  lightly. 

The  inhabitants  of  the  country  districts  vociferated  in 
one  voice : 

"Uahani!     Udhanil" 

"Faufau!    Faufau!"  cried  the  gods. 

"Foul!  Foul!  'E  'it'  im,  'hand'  e 's  hon  'is  'ands 
hand  kneeses,"  exclaimed  the  Australian  woman. 

The  audience  took  up  the  chorus  in  French,  Tahitian, 
and  English.  Though  Opeta  had  won  them  all  by  his 
ability  and  fairness  and  wras  plainly  the  better  man,  the 
sentiment  was  for  the  rules.  The  Christchurch  Kid 
thought  a  moment,  and  conferred  with  the  announcer, 
who  talked  with  all  the  seconds.  The  spectators  were 


322  MYSTIC  ISLES 

insistent,  and  though  loath  to  end  the  show,  the  Kid 
held  up  the  gloved  hand  of  the  Mataiean. 

The  announcer  declared  him  the  "champignon"  of 
Papeete,  but  naively  declared  that  Opeta  was  still  full 
of  fight,  and  challenged  the  universe.  The  Raratonga 
man  was  dumfounded  at  the  result  of  his  forgetfulness, 
and  gazed  coldly  and  accusingly  at  the  red  plaits.  The 
people,  too,  now  regretted  their  enthusiasm  for  the  right, 
which  had  shortened  their  program  of  rounds,  and  de- 
manded that  the  battle  go  on.  But  the  band  had  left, 
the  lights  were  dimmed,  and  gradually  the  crowd  de- 
parted. 

The  Australian  waited  to  shake  the  hand  of  her 
knight,  to  whom  she  said: 

"I  bloomin'  well  knew  you  'd  do  'im  hup!  'E's  got 
nothin'  hin  'is  right.  'E's  a  runaw'y,  'e  is." 

David  and  I  went  into  the  buffet  of  the  cinema  after 
the  fight  to  hear  the  arguments  over  it,  and  he  to  collect 
bets.  He  had  chosen  the  winner  by  the  toss  of  a  coin. 
The  French  Governor  of  the  Paumotus  was  there,  gaily 
bantering  half  a  dozen  girls  for  whom  he  bought  drinks. 
We  joined  him  with  Miri  and  Caroline  and  Maraa  and 
others,  the  best-known  sirens  of  Papeete.  They  were 
handsome,  though  savage-looking,  and  they  had  lost 
their  soft  voices.  Alcohol  and  a  thousand  upaupahuras 
had  made  them  shrill.  They  smoked  endless  cigarettes. 
Some  wore  shoes  and  stockings,  and  some  were  bare- 
footed. Their  dresses  were  red  or  blue,  with  insertions 
of  lace  and  ribbons,  and  they  were  crowned  with  flowers 
in  token  of  their  mood  of  gaiety. 

David  insisted  on  a  bowl  of  velvet,  three  quarts  of 
champagne,  and  three  of  English  porter  mixed  in  a 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  323 

great  urn.  The  champagne  bubbled  in  the  heavier  por- 
ter, and  the  brew  was  a  dark,  brilliant  color,  soft  and 
smooth.  It  was  delicious,  and  seemed  as  safe  as  cocoa- 
nut  milk.  I  drank  my  share  of  it  in  the  cinema  cafe, 
and  after  that  was  conscious  only  vaguely  of  going  to 
the  Cocoanut  House  garden,  where  Miri  and  Caroline 
and  Maraa  danced  nude  under  the  trees  by  the  light  of 
the  full  moon. 

Then  came  blankness  until  I  awoke  several  hours 
after  midnight.  I  was  sitting  on  the  curbing  of  the 
Pool  of  Psyche,  and  some  one  was  holding  my  hand.  I 
thought  it  must  be  Atupu  or  Lovaina,  and  groped  for  a 
moment  before  I  could  pull  my  senses  together.  I 
looked  up,  and  saw  a  wreathed  and  bearded  native,  and 
then  down  and  saw  his  attire,  mixed  man's  and  woman's, 
and  knew  he  was  one  of  the  mahus  who  loafed  about  the 
queen's  grounds.  I  drew  away  my  hand  as  from  a  ser- 
pent's jaws,  and  clasped  my  head,  which  rocked  in  an- 
guish. A  horrid  chuckle  or  dismal  throaty  sound 
caused  me  to  see  the  Dummy  standing  in  the  gateway, 
looking  contemptuously  at  me,  and  witheringly  at  my 
companion.  I  had  a  second's  thought  of  myself  as  a 
son  of  Laocoon. 

The  mahu  got  up  and  hastened  away,  and  Vava  put 
his  hand  on  my  shoulder  and  lifted  me  as  a  child  to  the 
road.  He  pointed  toward  the  Annexe,  and  as  I  went 
haltingly  with  him,  he  now  and  again  uttered  unearthly 
cackles  and  bawls  as  if  enjoying  a  farce  I  could  not  see. 
He,  like  the  mahu,  was  one  of  those  mishaps  of  nature 
assigned  to  play  an  absurd  and  sorry  part  in  the  tragi- 
comedy of  life  in  which  all  must  act  the  roles  assigned  by 
the  great  author-manager  until  death  puts  us  out  of 
the  cast.  In  that  scene  I  myself  was  the  buffoon  of  fate. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

A  Journey  to  Mataiea — I  abandon  city  life — Interesting  sights  on  the  route 
— The  Grotto  of  Maraa — Papara  and  the  Chief  Tati — The  plantation  of 
Atimaono — My  host,  the  Chevalier  Tetuanui. 

LIFE  in  the  country  made  me  laugh  at  myself  for 
having  so  long  stayed  in  the  capital.  The  fever 
of  Papeete  had  long  since  cooled  in  my  veins. 
A  city  man  myself,  I  might  have  known  that  all  capitals 
are  noxious.  Great  cities  are  the  wens  on  the  body  of 
civilization.  They  are  aggregations  of  sick  people,  who 
die  out  in  the  third  generation.  Greed  builds  them. 
Crowded  populations  increase  property  values  and  buy 
more  manufactured  luxuries.  The  country  sends  its 
best  to  perish  in  these  huddlements.  In  America,  where 
money  interests  boom  cities  and  proudly  boast  their 
corruption  in  numbers,  half  the  people  are  already  in 
these  webs  in  which  the  spider  of  commerce  eats  its  vic- 
tims, but  ultimately  may  perish  for  lack  of  food.  Brick 
and  steel  grow  nothing. 

I  had  made  excursions  from  Papeete,  but  always  car- 
rying the  poisons  of  the  town  with  me.  At  last  my 
playmates  deserted  me.  Lying  Bill  and  McHenry 
sailed  on  their  schooner  for  the  Paumotu  and  the  Mar- 
quesas islands,  Landers  left  for  Auckland,  and  Count 
Polonsky  for  a  flying  visit  to  America.  Llewellyn, 
though  an  interesting  study,  learned  in  native  ways,  and 
with  comparisons  of  Europe  and  America,  was  too 
atrabilious,  and,  besides,  had  with  his  young  partner, 

324 


MYSTIC  ISLES  325 

David,  abandoned  himself  to  the  night  life,  the  cinema 
bars,  with  their  hilarious  girls  and  men,  the  prize-fights, 
and  the  dancing  on  the  beach  in  the  starlight.  Schlyter, 
the  tailor,  an  occasional  companion,  was  busied  cutting 
and  sewing  a  hundred  uniforms  for  a  war-ship's  crew. 

I  bethought  me  of  the  letter  Princess  Noanoa  Tiare 
had  given  me  to  the  chief  of  Mataiea,  and  with  a  bag  I 
departed  for  that  village  at  daybreak,  after  taofe  tau 
for  four  sous  at  Shin  Bung  Lung's  Fare  Tamaaraa. 
The  diligence  was  open  at  the  sides  and  roofed  with  an 
awning,  and  was  drawn  by  two  mules,  with  bells  on  their 
collars. 

On  the  stage  I  paid  twenty  centimes  a  kilometre,  or 
six  and  a  half  cents  a  mile.  It  carried  the  mail,  passen- 
gers, and  freight.  In  every  district  there  was  a  mail- 
box on  the  fence  of  the  chefferie,  the  chief's  office,  and 
on  the  trees  alongside  the  road  at  regular  intervals,  and 
the  driver  took  mails  from  people  who  hailed  him.  Ar- 
riving at  a  chefferie,  the  stage  halted,  the  district  mutoi, 
or  native  policeman-postman,  appeared  leisurely, 
opened  the  locked  box  on  the  diligence,  looked  at  ease 
over  the  contents,  took  out  what  he  liked,  and  put  back 
the  remainder,  with  the  postings  of  the  chefferie. 

A  glance  at  the  map  of  Tahiti  shows  it  shaped  like  a 
Samoan  fan,  or,  roughly,  like  a  lady's  hand  mirror.  It 
is  really  two  islands,  joined  by  the  mile-wide  isthmus  of 
Taravao.  The  larger  island  is  Poroiunu  or  Tahiti-nui 
(big  Tahiti),  and  the  smaller  Taiarapu,  or  Tahiti-iti 
(little  Tahiti) .  Tahiti-nui  is  almost  round;  and  Tahiti- 
iti,  oval.  Both  are  volcanic,  distinct  in  formation. 
They  are  united  by  a  sedimentary  piece  of  land  long 
after  they  were  raised  from  the  ocean's  bed. 


326  MYSTIC  ISLES 

Mataiea  is  twenty-seven  miles  from  Papeete,  and 
well  on  toward  the  isthmus. 

Most  of  our  passengers  were  Chinese,  and  I  realized 
the  Asiaticizing  of  Tahiti.  They  were  store-keepers, 
small  farmers,  or  laborers.  The  Broom  Road  lay  most 
of  the  way  along  the  beach,  back  of  the  fringe  of  cocoa- 
nut  and  pandanus-trees,  and  between  the  homes  and 
plantations  of  Tahitians  and  foreigners.  I  saw  all  the 
fruits  of  the  islands  in  matchless  profusion,  intermingled 
with  magnificent  ferns,  the  dazzling  bougainvillea,  the 
brilliant  flamboyant-tree,  and  a  thousand  creepers  and 
plants.  Every  few  minutes  the  road  rushed  to  the 
water's-edge,  and  the  glowing  main,  with  its  flashing 
reef,  and  the  shadowy  outlines  of  Moorea,  a  score  of 
miles  away,  appeared  and  fled.  Past  villages,  churches, 
schools,  and  villas,  the  shops  of  the  Chinese  merchants, 
the  sheds  for  drying  copra,  rows  of  vanilla-vines,  beaches 
with  canoes  drawn  up  and  nets  drying  on  sticks,  men 
and  women  lolling  on  mats  upon  the  eternal  green  car- 
pet of  the  earth,  girls  waving  hands  to  us,  superb  men, 
naked  save  for  pareus,  with  torsos,  brown,  satiny,  and 
muscled  like  Greek  gladiators,  women  bathing  in 
streams,  their  forms  glistening,  their  breasts  bare;  and 
constant  to  the  scene,  dominating  it,  the  lofty,  snake- 
like  cocoanuts  and  their  brothers  of  less  height  and 
greater  girth. 

At  Fa'a  a  postwoman  appeared.  Before  opening 
the  mail-box  she  tarried  to  light  a  cigarette  and  to  chat 
with  the  driver  about  the  new  picture  at  the  cinema  in 
Papeete.  She  commented  laughingly  on  the  writers 
and  addressees  of  the  letters,  and  flirted  with  a  passen- 
ger. The  former  himcne-house,  which  had  been  the 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  327 

dance-hall  of  Kelly,  the  leader  of  the  fish-strike,  was 
vacant,  but  I  heard  in  imagination  the  strains  of  his 
pagan  accordion,  and  the  himene  which  will  never  be 
forgotten  by  the  Tahitians,  "Hallelujah!  I  'm  a  bum!" 
Kelly  had  gone  over  the  water  to  the  jails  of  the  United 
States,  where  life  is  hard  for  minstrels  who  sing  such 
droll  songs. 

In  Punaauia,  the  next  district  to  Fa'a,  was  a  school- 
house  and  on  it  a  sign :  2x2  =  4. 

M.  Souvy,  a  government  printer  of  Tahiti,  had  given 
the  site  out  of  his  humble  savings.  By  the  sign,  in  his 
blunt  way,  he  struck  at  education  which  does  not  teach 
the  simple  necessity  of  progress — common  sense. 

fCCela  saute  aux  yeux"  he  had  said. 

He  was  long  dead,  but  his  symbol  provoked  a  ques- 
tion from  every  new-comer,  and  kept  alive  his  name  and 
philosophy.  I  never  saw  it  but  I  thought  of  an  article 
I  had  once  written  that  led  to  the  overturning  of  the 
educational  system  of  a  country.  How  all  guide-posts 
point  to  oneself!  Near  the  school-house,  a  dozen  yards 
from  the  salt  water,  was  a  native  house  with  a  straw 
roof,  a  mere  old  shell,  untenanted. 

M.  Edmond  Brault,  the  government  employee  and 
musical  composer,  a  passenger  on  the  diligence,  had  with 
him  his  violin,  intending  to  spend  the  day  in  company 
with  it  in  a  grove.  He  remarked  the  tumbledown  con- 
dition of  the  house,  and  said: 

"I  have  sat  under  that  toit  de  chaume,  that  straw 
roof,  and  talked  with  and  played  for  a  painter  who  was 
living  there  quite  apart  from  the  world.  He  was  Mon- 
sieur Paul  Gauguin,  and  he  had  a  very  distingue  estab- 
lishment. The  walls  of  his  atelier  were  covered  with 


328  MYSTIC  ISLES 

his  canvases,  and  in  front  of  the  house  he  had  a  number 
of  sculptures  in  wood.  That  was  about  1895,  I  think. 
I  can  see  the  maitre  now.  He  wore  a  pareu  of  red  mus- 
lin and  an  undershirt  of  netting.  He  said  that  he 
adored  this  corner  of  the  world  and  would  never  leave  it. 
He  had  returned  from  Paris  more  than  ever  convinced 
that  he  was  not  fitted  to  live  in  Europe.  Yet,  mon  ami, 
he  ran  away  from  here,  and  went  to  the  savage  Mar- 
quesas Islands,  where  he  died  in  a  few  years.  He  loved 
the  third  etude  of  Chopin,  and  the  andante  of  Bee- 
thoven's twenty-third  sonata.  You  know  music  says 
things  we  would  be  almost  afraid  to  put  in  words,  if  we 
could.  If  Flaubert  might  have  written  'Madame 
Bovary'  or  'Salambo'  in  musical  notes,  he  would  not 
have  been  prosecuted  by  the  censor.  We  musicians 
have  that  advantage." 

"In  America,"  I  replied,  "we  have  never  yet  censored 
musical  compositions,  and  many  works  are  played  freely 
because  the  censors  and  the  reform  societies'  detectives 
cannot  understand  them.  But  if  our  inquisitors  take  up 
music,  they  may  yet  reach  them.  For  instance,  the  pre- 
lude of  'Tristan  and  Isolde,'  and  Strauss'  'Salome.' ' 

"No,"  returned  the  Frenchman,  quickly;  "music 
would  make  them  liberals." 

A  little  farther  on,  in  the  valley  of  Punaruu,  the  ami- 
able violinist  and  pianist  showed  me  the  ruins  of  defense 
works  thrown  up  by  the  French  to  withstand  the  attacks 
of  the  great  chieftain,  Oropaa  of  Punaauia,  who  with 
his  warriors  had  here  disputed  foot  by  foot  the  advance 
of  the  invaders.  These  Tahitians  were  without  artillery, 
mostly  without  guns  of  any  sort,  but  they  utilized  the 
old  strategy  of  the  intertribal  wars,  and  rolled  huge 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  329 

rocks  down  upon  the  French  troops  in  narrow  defiles. 

We  saw  from  our  seats  through  the  shadows  of  the 
gorge  of  Punaruu  two  of  the  horns  of  Maiao,  the 
Diadem.  In  the  far  recesses  of  those  mountains  were 
almost  inaccessible  caves  in  which  the  natives  laid  their 
dead,  and  where  one  found  still  their  moldering  skele- 
tons. M.  Brault  touched  my  shoulder. 

"Rumor  has  it  that  the  body  of  Pomare  the  Fifth  is 
there,"  he  said;  "that  it  was  taken  secretly  from  the  tomb 
you  have  seen  near  Papeete,  and  carried  here  at  night. 
There  are  photographs  of  those  old  skeletons  taken  in 
that  grotto  of  the  tupapaus,  as  the  natives  call  the  dead 
and  their  ghosts.  The  natives  will  not  discuss  that 
place." 

It  was  from  Punaauia  that  Teriieroo  a  Teriierooterai 
had  gone  to  Papenoo  to  be  chief.  This  was  the  seat  of 
his  ancienne  famille.  Here  he  had  been  a  deacon  of 
the  church,  as  he  was  in  Papenoo,  because  it  meant  so- 
cial rank,  and  was  possible  insurance  against  an  un- 
known future.  The  church  edifice  was  the  gathering- 
place,  as  once  had  been  the  marae,  the  native  temple. 
This  was  Sunday,  and  I  passed  a  church  every  few 
miles,  the  Roman  Catholic  and  the  Protestant  vying. 
They  had  matched  each  other  in  number  since  the 
French  admiral  had  exiled  the  British  missionary-con- 
sul, and  compelled  the  queen  to  erect  a  papal  church  for 
every  bethel. 

Along  the  road  and  in  the  churchyards  the  preachers 
and  deacons  were  in  black  cloth,  sweating  as  they 
walked,  their  faces  beatudinized  as  in  America. 

Many  carried  large  Bibles,  and  frowned  on  the  merry, 
singing  crew  who  went  by  on  foot,  in  carriages  and  au- 


330  MYSTIC  ISLES 

tomobiles.  Everywhere,  in  all  countries,  the  long, 
black  coat  and  white  or  black  cravat  are  the  uniforms  of 
evangelism.  In  Tahiti  I  saw  ministers  of  the  gospel, 
white  and  brown,  appareled  like  circuit-riders  in  Mis- 
souri; hot,  dusty,  and  their  collars  wilted,  but  their 
souls  serene  and  sure  in  their  mission.  They  as- 
sociated God  and  black,  as  night  and  darkness. 

The  sound  of  sermons  echoed  from  chapels  as  we  pro- 
gressed, the  voices  raised  in  the  same  tone  one  heard  in 
a  Methodist  camp-meeting  in  Kansas,  and  the  singing, 
when  in  French,  having  much  the  same  effect,  a  whining, 
droning  fashion,  without  spirituality  or  art. 

But  why  look  for  a  moment  at  these  unfortunates  or 
listen  to  their  dull  chants  when  marvels  of  nature  un- 
folded at  every  step !  There  was  never  such  luxuriant 
vegetation,  never  such  a  riot  of  color  and  richness  of 
growth  as  on  every  side.  The  wealth  of  the  bougain- 
villea's  masses  of  lustrous  magenta  was  matched  by  the 
dazzling  flamboyant,  trees  forty  feet  high,  and  their 
foliage  a  hundred  in  circumference,  a  sheen  of  crimson. 
Clumps  of  bamboo  as  big  as  a  city  lot  and  towering  to 
the  sky,  with  the  yellow  allamanda  framing  the  bunga- 
lows, and  a  tangle  of  bananas,  lantana,  tafeie,  cocoas, 
and  a  hundred  other  fruits,  flowers  and  creepers,  made 
the  whole  journey  through  a  paradise. 

Around  many  cocoanut-palms  were  bands  of  tin  or 
zinc  ten  or  twenty  feet  from  the  earth.  These  were  to 
foil  the  rats  or  crabs  which  climb  the  trees  and  steal  ( can 
a  creature  steal  from  nature?)  the  nuts.  Every  avail- 
able piece  of  thin  metal  was  used  for  this.  The  sheets 
were  often  flattened  kerosene-  and  gasoline-cans  and 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  331 

were  drawn  taut  and  smooth.  These  are  impasses  for 
the  wily  climbers. 

"Us  ne  passer  out  pas"  said  the  French ;  "Aita  haere!" 
the  Tahitians. 

The  road  was  good,  but  narrow,  in  few  places  room 
for  two  to  pass  except  by  turning  out,  skirting  the  beach 
at  the  water's-edge,  crossing  causeways  over  inlets,  and 
in  admirable  curves  clinging  to  the  hillsides,  which 
bathed  in  the  sea.  Moving  over  a  small  levee  we  came 
to  the  pointe  de  Maraa,  where  was  the  Grotto  of  Maraa, 
a  gigantic  recess  worn  in  the  solid  wall  of  rock,  a  dark 
mysterious  interior,  which  gave  me  a  momentary  surge 
of  my  childhood  dread  and  love  of  caves  and  secret  en- 
trances to  pirates'  lairs.  The  diligence  halted  at  the  re- 
quest of  M.  Brault,  and  he  and  I  jumped  out  and  ran  to 
the  grotto.  In  it  was  a  lake  with  black  waters,  and 
down  the  face  of  the  cliff,  which  rose  hundreds  of  feet 
straight,  dripped  a  million  drops  of  the  waters  of  the 
hills,  so  that  the  ground  about  was  in  puddles.  The  in- 
side walls  and  arched  ceiling  were  covered  with  a  solid 
texture  of  verdant  foliage,  wet  and  fragrant.  We 
found  a  little  canoe  fastened  to  a  stone,  and  adventured 
on  the  quiet  surface  of  the  pond  until  at  about  eighty 
yards  of  penetration  we  came  to  a  blind  curtain  of  stone. 

"This  grot,"  said  M.  Brault,  "was  for  centuries  the 
retreat  of  those  conquered  in  war,  sacred  to  gods,  and  a 
sanctuary  never  violated,  like  those  cities  of  refuge 
among  the  Hebrews  and  Greeks.  Now  it  is  a  picnic 
rendezvous,  very  dear  to  Papeete  whites  and  to  tourists. 
C'est  la  vie" 

Tahitian  women  passengers  were  adorning  their  heads 


332  MYSTIC  ISLES 

with  wreaths  of  maiden-hair  and  rare  ferns  from  the 
cavern.  Great  lianas  hung  down  the  walls,  and  these 
they  climbed  to  reach  the  exquisite  draperies  of  the 
chamber.  The  farther  we  left  behind  the  capital,  the 
more  smiling  were  the  faces,  the  less  conventional  the 
actions  and  gestures  of  the  people. 

Papara  was  at  hand,  the  richest  and  most  famous  of 
all  the  districts  of  Tahiti.  The  village  was  a  few 
Chinese  stores,  a  Catholic  and  a  Protestant  church,  a 
graveyard,  and  a  scattered  collection  of  homes.  I  bade 
au  revoir  to  my  delightful  companion,  Edmond  Brault, 
having  determined  to  walk  the  remaining  kilometers, 
and  to  send  on  my  inconsiderable  bag  of  clothing. 

Lovaina  had  given  me  a  note  to  the  chief  of  Papara, 
Tati,  whose  father  was  Salmon,  an  English  Jew,  and 
whose  sister  was  Marao,  the  relict  of  the  late  king,  and 
known  as  the  queen.  His  father  was  the  first  white  to 
marry  formally  a  Tahitian  noblewoman.  Pomare  IV 
had  generously  granted  permission  for  the  high  chief  ess 
of  Papara  to  ally  herself  with  the  shrewd  descendant  of 
the  House  of  David,  and  their  progeny  had  included  the 
queen,  Tati,  and  others  celebrated  in  Tahitian  life. 

Tati  welcomed  me  with  the  heartiness  of  the  English 
gentleman  and  the  courtesy  of  the  Tahitian  chief.  He 
was  a  man  of  large  parts  himself,  limited  in  his  hos- 
pitality only  by  his  means,  he,  like  all  natives,  having 
thrown  away  most  of  his  patrimony  in  his  youth.  He 
was  the  best-known  Tahitian  next  to  Prince  Hinoe,  but 
much  abler  than  he.  He  knew  the  Tahitian  history  and 
legends,  the  interwoven  tribal  relations,  the  descents 
and  alliances  of  the  families,  better  than  any  one  else. 
Such  knowledge  was  highly  esteemed  by  the  natives,  for 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  333 

whom  chiefly  rank  still  bore  significance.  The  Tatis 
had  been  chiefs  of  Papara  for  generations,  and  had  en- 
tertained Captain  Cook. 

He  lived  in  a  bungalow  near  the  beach,  handsome, 
spreading,  and  with  a  mixed  European  and  indigenous 
arrangement  and  furnishing  that  was  very  attractive. 
I  met  his  sons  and  daughters,  and  had  luncheon  with 
them.  Tati,  of  course,  spoke  English  fluently,  yet  with 
the  soft  intonation  of  the  Tahitian.  Some  of  the  dishes 
and  knives  and  forks  had  belonged  to  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson,  who,  said  Tati,  had  given  them  to  him  when 
he  was  departing  from  Tahiti.  Tati's  sister,  a  widow, 
was  of  the  party,  and  together  we  went  to  the  Protestant 
churchyard  to  her  husband's  tomb.  It  was  imposing 
and  costly,  and  the  inscription  read : 

In  Memory  of  Dorence  Atwater,  beloved  husband  of  arii 
inoore  Moetia  Salmon.  Born  at  Terryville,  Conn.,  Feb.  3, 
1845.  Died  at  San  Francisco,  Cal.,  November  28,  1910.  As 
A  last  tribute  to  his  name  there  was  erected  in  his  native  state 
a  monument  with  this  inscription: 

This  memorial  is  dedicated  to  our  fellow  townsman,  Dorence 
Atwater,  for  his  patriotism  in  preserving  to  this  nation  the 
names  of  13,000  soldiers  who  died  while  prisoners  at  Anderson- 
ville,  Ga. 

He  builded  better  than  he  knew  ;  so/ne  Jay,  perchance,  in  sur- 
prise he  may  wake  to  learn: 

He  builded  a  monument  more  enduring  than  brass. 
Tupuataroa. 

The  name  given  Atwater  when  he  married  Moetia 
Salmon  was  Tupuataroa,  which  means  a  wise  man. 
Mrs.  Atwater  was  rich  and  melancholy.  She  mourned 
her  dead.  Atwater  had  come  to  Tahiti  as  American 
consul,  and  had  piled  franc  on  franc  in  trade  and  specu- 


334  MYSTIC  ISLES 

lation,  with  great  dignity  and  success.  He  had  been 
the  leading  American  of  his  generation  in  the  South 
Seas,  and  had  left  no  children. 

Tati  said  that  when  the  church  was  dedicated — it  was 
a  box-like  structure  of  wood  and  coral,  whitewashed  and 
red-roofed — three  thousand  Tahitians  had  feasted  in  a 
thatched  house  erected  for  the  arearea.  The  himene~ 
chorus  was  made  up  of  singers  from  every  district  in 
Tahiti  and  Moorea.  Tati  had  presided. 

"We  ate  for  three  days,"  he  related  to  me.  "More 
than  two  hundred  and  fifty  swine,  fifteen  hundred 
chickens,  and  enough  fish  to  equal  the  miraculous 
draft  on  the  shores  of  Galilee.  We  Polynesians  were 
always  that  way,  Gargantuan  eaters  at  times,  but  able 
to  go  fifty  miles  at  top  speed  on  a  cocoanut  in  war." 

Tati  would  have  me  stay  indefinitely  his  guest,  but  I 
had  written  to  Mataiea  of  my  intended  arrival  there, 
and  though  there  were  insistent  cries  that  I  return  soon, 
I  said  farewell. 

Tati  himself  walked  with  me  to  the  bridge  over  the 
Taharuu  River,  one  of  the  hundred  and  fifty  streams  I 
crossed  in  a  circuit  of  Tahiti. 

"My  ancestor,  the  old  chief  Tati,"  he  told  me,  "cut 
down  the  sacred  trees  of  our  clan  marae  near  by,  the 
cdtos,  tamanus,  and  miros.  He  had  become  a  Christian, 
as  was  fashionable,  and  at  the  instigation  of  the  English 
missionaries  destroyed  many  beautiful  and  ancient 
trees,  statues,  carvings,  and  buildings.  The  Tahitians 
who  mourned  his  iconoclasm  had  a  chant  which  said  that 
the  Taharuu  River  ran  blood  when  their  gods  were  dis- 
honored." 

From  the  stream  the  vast  domain  of  the  plantation  of 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  335 

Atimaono  stretched  to  Mataiea.  It  had  been  planted 
in  the  sixties,  when  British  demands  for  cotton,  and  the 
blockade  and  laying  waste  of  the  South  in  the  American 
Civil  War  caused  a  thousand  such  speculations  all  over 
the  world. 

It  was  for  this  plantation,  the  most  celebrated  in 
Tahiti,  that  Chinese  were  imported,  and  a  thousand  had 
their  shanties  where  now  is  brush.  Those  were  the 
times  that  the  Marquesas  had  their  cotton  boom,  and 
lapsed,  too.  Upon  a  hill  of  this  plantation  the  English 
manager,  a  former  cavalry  officer,  had  built  himself  a 
palatial  mansion,  and  lived  like  a  feudal  lord,  the  most 
powerful  resident  of  Tahiti.  Travelers  from  all  the 
world  were  his  guests.  Fair  ladies  danced  the  night 
away  upon  his  broad  verandas  and  drank  the  choicest 
wines  of  France.  Scandal  wove  a  dozen  strange  stories 
of  intrigues,  of  a  high  official  who  sold  his  wife  to  him, 
of  Arioian  orgies,  and  all  the  associations  of  semi-regal 
rule  and  accountability  to  none.  Cotton  prices  de- 
clined, the  bubble  burst  in  bankruptcy,  the  miserable 
death  of  the  aristocrat,  and  the  fury  of  cheated  English 
investors. 

The  plantation  was  now  owned  by  a  storekeeper  of 
Tahiti,  prosy  and  disliked,  who  had  fattened  by  ability 
to  outwit  the  natives;  but  the  glory  had  departed,  and 
the  place  languished,  ruins  and  jungle,  the  prey  of 
guava  and  lantana.  The  neighborhood  was  known  as 
Ati-Maono,  "The  Clan  of  Maon." 

The  lines  between  village  and  country  were  not  rigid, 
and  often  the  hamlet  straggled  along  the  road  for  much 
of  the  district.  Every  kilometer  there  was  a  stone 
marking  the  distance  from  Papeete.  One  knew  the  vil- 


336  MYSTIC  ISLES 

lages  more  by  the  Chinese  stores  than  by  any  other 
feature. 

"You  will  find  the  Papara  country  full  of  oranges," 
Fragrance  of  the  Jasmine  had  said. 

The  fruit  was  as  sweet  and  delicious  as  any  I  had 
eaten,  and  the  trees  larger  than  their  parents  of  Sydney, 
Australia.  I  strolled  along  the  road  eating,  speaking 
all  who  passed  or  were  in  sight  within  their  gardens,  and 
came  to  Mataiea,  where  I  was  to  live  months  and  to 
learn  the  Tahitian  mind  and  language. 

Ariioehau  Ameroearao,  commonly  known  as  Tetu- 
anui  Tavana,  or  Monsieur  le  Chef  de  Mataiea,  Tetu- 
anui,  and  his  wife,  Haamoura,  were  the  salt  of  the 
earth.  The  chief  was  a  large  man,  molded  on  a  great 
frame,  and  very  corpulent,  as  are  most  Polynesians  of 
more  than  thirty  years.  He  was  about  sixty,  strong  and 
sweet  by  nature,  brave  and  simple.  His  vahine  was 
very  stout,  half  blind  from  cataracts,  but  ever  busied 
about  her  household  and  her  guests.  As  chief  and  road- 
master  of  his  district,  Tetuanui  received  a  small  com- 
pensation, but  not  enough  for  the  wants  of  his  depen- 
dents, so  a  few  paying  white  guests  were  sent  to  him  by 
Lovaina.  The  house  was  set  back  from  the  Broom 
Road  in  a  clearing  of  a  wood  of  cocoanuts,  breadfruits, 
badamiers,  and  ^'-apples.  The  father  of  Haamoura 
had  given  the  land  to  his  daughter,  and  they  had  built 
on  it  a  residence  of  two  high  stories,  with  wide  verandas. 

The  chief  and  his  wife  had  no  children,  but  had 
adopted  twenty -five.  They  had  brought  most  of  these 
to  manhood  and  womanhood,  and  many  were  married. 
Perhaps  their  care,  dots  for  the  daughters,  and  estates 
for  the  sons,  had  made  the  parents  poor.  One  was  the 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  337 

blood  son  of  Prince  Hinoe,  and  was  now  a  youth,  and 
worked  about  the  plantation  of  the  chief.  His  chris- 
tened name  was  Ariipaea  Temanutuanuu  Teariitinorua 
Tetuanui  a  Oropaa  Pomare.  He  was  a  prince  and  very 
handsome  and  gentle,  but  he  gathered  the  leaves  from 
the  volunteer  lawn  for  the  horses.  There  was  an  atmos- 
phere of  affection  and  happiness  about  the  home  I  have 
not  sensed  more  keenly  anywhere  else. 

The  Duke  of  Abruzzi's  photograph  and  one  of  the 
Italian  war-ship  Liguria,  were  on  a  wall  in  the  draw- 
ing-room, with  others  of  notable  people  whom  the  chief 
had  entertained.  He  himself  wore  the  cross  of  the 
Legion  of  Honor,  which  had  been  presented  to  him  in 
Paris  when  he  visited  there  many  years  before. 

The  house  was  raised  ten  feet  from  the  earth,  and 
the  ground  below  was  neatly  covered  with  black  pebbles 
from  the  shore.  Shaded  by  the  veranda-floors,  which 
formed  the  ceilings  of  their  open  rooms,  the  family  sat 
on  mats,  and  made  hats,  sewed,  sang,  and  chatted. 
They  laughed  all  day.  A  dozen  children  played  on  the 
sward  where  horses,  ducks,  geese,  chickens,  and  turkeys 
fed  and  led  their  life.  When  rice  or  corn  was  thrown 
to  them,  the  mina-birds  flocked  to  share  it.  These  im- 
pudent thieves  pounced  on  the  best  grains,  and  though 
the  chickens  fought  them,  they  appeared  to  be  afraid 
only  of  the  ducks.  These  hated  the  minas,  and  pursued 
them  angrily.  But  the  minas  can  fly,  and,  when  threat- 
ened, lazily  lifted  themselves  a  few  feet  out  of  reach  of 
the  bills,  and  returned  when  danger  was  over. 

The  chief's  plantation  extended  from  the  sea  to  the 
mountain,  altogether  about  ten  acres,  which  in  Tahiti  is 
a  good-sized  single  holding.  Cocoanuts,  breadfruit, 


338  MYSTIC  ISLES 

limes,  oranges,  badamiers,  mangoes,  and  other  trees 
made  a  dense  forest,  and  a  hectare  or  more  was  planted 
with  vanilla-vines  that  grew  on  the  false  coffee  of 
which  hedges  were  usually  made.  A  hundred  yards 
away  a  stream  meandered  toward  the  sea,  and  there 
women  of  the  household  sat  and  washed  clothes. 

They  had  no  taro  planted,  though  there  was  much 
about.  Taro,  the  staple  food  of  Hawaiians,  either 
simply  boiled  or  fermented  as  poi,  was  not  a  decided 
favorite  in  Tahiti.  The  natives  thought  it  tasteless 
compared  with  the  feif  so  rich  in  color  and  flavor.  The 
taro  is  a  lily  (Arum) ,  and  its  great  bulbs  are  the  edible 
part,  though  the  tops  of  small  taro-plants  are  delicious, 
surpassing  spinach,  and  we  had  them  often  on  our  table. 

Our  customary  meals  at  eleven  and  at  six  were  of  raw 
oysters,  shrimp,  crabs,  craw-fish,  or  lobsters;  fish  of 
many  kinds,  chicken,  breadfruit,  w-apples  stewed, 
bananas,  oranges,  feis,  cocoanuts,  and  sucking  pigs. 
The  family  ate  sitting  or  squatting  on  the  ground,  but 
I  had  a  table  and  silver,  glass  and  linen.  It  is  the  way 
of  the  Tahitian.  The  big  house,  well  furnished,  was  not 
inhabited  by  the  chief's  family.  It  was  their  monument 
of  success.  They  slept  in  one  of  several  houses  they  had 
near  by,  and  their  elegant  dishes  were  unused  except  for 
white  guests. 

On  the  beach  at  the  river's  mouth  the  heron  sat  or 
stalked  solemnly,  and  the  tern  flew  about  the  reef.  The 
white  iitae  lived  about  the  cocoanut -trees. 

From  the  broad  veranda  in  front  was  a  view  of  the 
sea,  and  all  day  and  night  the  breakers  beat  upon  the 
reef  a  mile  away,  now  as  soft  as  the  summer  wind  in  the 
lime-trees  of  Seville,  and  again  loud  as  winter  in  the 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  339 

giant  pine  forests  of  Michigan.  The  fleecy  surf 
gleamed  and  shimmered  in  the  sun  as  it  rolled  over  the 
coral  dam,  and  when  the  sea  was  strong,  there  was  an- 
other sound,  the  lapping  of  the  waves  on  the  sand  a  hun- 
dred yards  from  me.  A  little  wharf  had  been  built  there 
by  the  Government,  and  a  schooner  arrived  and  de- 
parted every  few  days,  with  people  and  produce. 

I  ate  alone  mostly,  at  a  table  on  the  veranda  in  front 
of  my  chamber,  waited  on  by  Tatini,  a  very  lovely  and 
shy  maiden  of  fourteen  years.  To  her  I  talked  Tahi- 
tian,  as  with  all  the  family,  in  an  effort  to  perfect  my- 
self in  that  tongue. 

I  was  happy  that  I  had  pulled  up  anchor  in  Papeete, 
and  as  contrast  is,  after  all,  comparative,  I  felt  like  a 
Xew- Yorker  wrho  finds  himself  in  Arcadia,  though  I 
had  thought  Papeete,  on  first  sight,  the  garden  of  Allah. 
In  Mataiea  I  realized  the  wonder  of  the  Polynesian  peo- 
ple, and  found  my  months  with  the  whites  of  the  city  a 
fit  background  for  study  of  and  ardent  delight  in  the 
brown  islanders  I  was  to  know  so  well. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

My  life  in  the  house  of  Tetuanui — Whence  came  the  Polynesians — A  migra- 
tion from  Malaysia — Their  legends  of  the  past — Condition  of  Tahiti 
when  the  white  came — The  great  navigator,  Cook — Tetuanui  tells  of  old 
Tahiti. 

HAPPINESS  in  civilization  consists  in  seeing 
life  other  than  it  really  is.  At  Mataiea  the 
simple  truth  of  existence  was  joy.  In  the 
house  of  the  chief,  Tetuanui,  I  knew  a  peace  of  mind  and 
body  as  novel  to  me  as  my  surroundings.  For  the  first 
time  since  unconcerned  childhood  I  felt  my  heart  leap 
in  my  bosom  when  the  dawn  awoke  me,  and  was  glad 
merely  that  I  could  see  the  sun  rise  or  the  rain  fall.  All 
of  us  have  had  that  feeling  on  certain  mornings ;  but  was 
it  not  interwoven  with  the  affairs  of  the  day — a  picnic, 
a  rendezvous,  our  wedding,  a  first  morning  of  the  vaca- 
tion encampment  ?  In  Mataiea  it  was  spontaneous,  the 
harking  back  to  a  beneficent  mood  of  nature;  the  very 
sense  of  being  stirring  the  blood  in  delight,  and  girding 
up  the  loins  instantly  to  pleasurable  movement. 

I  slept  without  clothing,  and  in  a  bound  was  at  the 
door,  with  my  par  en  about  me.  Already  the  family 
had  begun  the  leisurely  tasks  of  the  day.  The  fowls 
were  on  the  sward  under  the  breadfruit  and  papaya- 
trees,  and  the  mina-birds  were  swooping  down  on  the 
grass  near  them  to  profit  by  their  uncovering  of  food. 
Those  discriminating  birds  are  like  the  Japanese,  seldom 
pioneering  in  wild  places,  but  settling  on  developed 

340 


MYSTIC  ISLES  341 

lands  to  gain  by  the  slower  industry  of  other  peoples. 
"Birds  that  live  on  cows,"  the  Tahitians  call  the  minas, 
because  where  there  are  enough  ruminants  each  bird  se- 
lects one,  and  spends  the  day  upon  its  back,  eating  the 
insects  that  infest  its  skin. 

The  sun  at  six  barely  lit  the  beach  and  revealed  the 
lagoon,  into  which  a  stream  from  the  mountains  poured 
within  Tetuanui's  confines.  I  threw  off  my  garment 
and  plunged  into  a  pool  under  a  clump  of  pandanus- 
trees.  It  was  cool  enough  at  that  hour  to  give  the  sur- 
face nerves  the  slight  shock  I  craved,  but  warmed  as  I 
lay  in  the  limpid  water  and  watched  the  light  sweeping 
past  the  reef  in  the  swift  way  of  the  tropics. 

I  danced  upon  the  beach  and  pursued  the  land  crabs 
to  their  burrows.  I  hoped  to  see  one  wrench  off  a  leg 
to  prove  what  I  had  been  told — that  if  one  in  its  move- 
ment to  the  salt  water  through  the  tall  grass  beyond  the 
sand,  touched  any  filth,  it  clawed  off  the  polluted  leg, 
and  that  a  crab  had  been  seen  thus  to  deprive  itself  of 
all  its  eight  limbs,  and  after  a  bath  to  hobble  back  to  its 
hole  with  the  aid  of  its  claws,  to  remain  until  it  had 
grown  a  complement  of  supports.  I  wondered  why  it 
did  not  content  itself  with  washing  instead  of  mutilation. 
To  the  biblical  expounder  it  was  an  apt  illustration  of 
"cutting  off  an  offending  member,"  as  recommended  in 
the  Book. 

At  the  house  the  family  were  preparing  their  first 
meal,  and  I  shared  it  with  them — oranges,  bananas,  cof- 
fee, and  rolls.  The  last,  with  the  New  Zealand  tinned 
butter,  came  from  the  Chinese  store.  We  sat  on  mats, 
and  we  drank  from  small  bowls.  The  coffee  was  sweet- 
ened with  their  own  brown  sugar,  and  the  juice  of  nearly 


342  MYSTIC  ISLES 

ripe  cocoanuts,  grated  and  pressed,  made  a  delicious 
substitute  for  cream.  Over  the  breakfast  we  talked, 
Tetuanui  and  Haamoura  answering  my  questions  and 
taking  me  along  the  path  of  my  inquiry  into  far  fields  of 
former  customs  and  ancient  lore.  They  were,  as  their 
forefathers,  gifted  in  oral  tradition,  with  retentive  mem- 
ories for  their  own  past  and  for  the  facts  and  legends  of 
the  racial  history.  We  who  have  for  thousands  of  years 
put  in  writing  our  records  cannot  grasp  the  fullness  of 
the  system  by  which  the  old  Polynesian  chiefs  and 
priests,  totally  without  letters,  or  even  ideographs,  ex- 
cept in  Easter  Island,  kept  the  archives  of  the  tribe  and 
nation  by  frequent  repetition  of  memorized  annals.  So 
we  got  Homer's  Odyssey,  and  the  Song  of  Solomon. 

What  Tahiti  was  like  before  the  white?  That  was  to 
me  a  subject  of  intense  interest,  now  that  I  was  fully 
aware  of  the  situation  after  a  hundred  and  fifty  years 
of  exploitation,  seventy-five  years  of  French  domina- 
tion, and  thirty  years  of  colonialism.  The  nature  of  the 
people  was  little  changed.  The  Tahitian  was  still  naif, 
hospitable,  gentle,  indolent  except  as  to  needs,  valuing 
friendship  above  all  things,  accepting  the  evangelism  of 
many  warring  Christian  sects  as  a  tumult  among  jealous 
gods  and  priests,  and  counting  sex  manifestations  free 
expressions  of  affection,  and  of  an  appetite  not  more 
sacred  nor  more  shameful  than  hunger  or  thirst. 

These  were  the  qualities  and  rules  of  conduct  ascribed 
to  the  Tahitians  by  the  first  discoverers,  especially  by 
those  who  were  not  narrowed  in  judgment  by  inexperi- 
ence and  religious  fanaticism,  as  were  the  British  and 
French  missionaries  of  early  days,  peasants  and  appren- 
tices who  had  forsaken  the  fields  and  workshops  for  the 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  343 

higher  sphere  of  devoteeism  and  freedom  from  manual 
labor.  These  clerics,  though  often  self-sacrificing  and 
yearning  for  martyrdom,  attributed  all  differences  from 
their  standards  or  preachments  to  inherent  wickedness 
or  diabolism. 

One  of  the  ablest  of  them  had  regretted  sorrowfully 
his  having  to  inform  the  Tahitians  that  all  their  an- 
cestors were  in  hell.  Some  clerics  had  made  wearing 
bonnets  the  test  of  decency,  and  all  had  taught  that  God 
hated  any  open  ardor  of  attraction  for  the  opposite  sex. 
Yet  it  was  almost  entirely  to  them  that  the  far-away 
student  had  to  turn  to  learn  any  of  the  details  of  native 
life  undefiled.  The  mariners  had  stayed  too  brief  a 
time  to  enter  into  these,  and  could  not  speak  Tahitian. 

I  knew  that  Tahitian  life,  political  and  economic,  so- 
cial and  religious,  had  been  utterly  changed,  but  I 
longed  for  an  understanding  of  what  had  been;  a  pan- 
orama of  it  before  my  eyes.  I  set  out  to  obtain  this  by 
constant  interrogations  of  every  one  I  thought  might 
have  even  a  scrap  of  enlightenment  for  me. 

On  rainy  days,  when  Chief  Tetuanui  did  not  oversee 
the  making  or  repair  of  roads  in  his  district,  and  always 
when  we  were  both  at  leisure,  I  sat  with  him,  and  the 
elders  of  the  neighborhood,  and  queried  them,  or  re- 
peated for  correction  and  comment  my  notes  upon  their 
antiquities — notes  founded  on  reading  and  my  obser- 
vation. 

Whence  had  come  these  Polynesians  or  Maoris  who 
peopled  the  ocean  islands  from  Hawaii  to  New  Zealand, 
and  from  Easter  Island  to  the  eastern  Fijis?  A  race 
set  apart  by  its  isolation  for  thousands  of  years  from  all 
the  rest  of  the  world,  distinguished  in  all  its  habitats — 


344  MYSTIC  ISLES 

4 

Hawaii,  Samoa,  the  Marquesas,  Tonga,  the  Paumotus, 
and  the  Society  archipelago,  and  New  Zealand — by 
beauty  of  form,  tint  and  uniformity  of  color,  height,  and 
soft  expression — an  expression  they  vainly  sought  to 
make  terrible  by  tattooing? 

The  legends  and  chants  of  the  race  unfolded  much  of 
the  mystery;  its  language's  relation  to  others,  more. 
These  Tahitians  and  all  their  kind  were  ancient  Aryans 
who  in  the  dim  past  were  in  India,  and  afterward  in  the 
Indian  archipelago.  They  were  in  Sumatra,  in  Java, 
in  the  Philippines  long  before  the  Malaj^s.  Certainly 
their  blood  brothers,  changed  by  millenniums  of  a  dif- 
ferent environment,  remain  in  Malaysia,  known  there  as 
the  aborigines  (Orang-Benoa),  by  the  majority  races. 
D'Urville  said  the  Harfouras  of  Celebes  were  identical 
physically  with  the  Polynesians.  At  some  unfixed  date 
the  first  of  the  Polynesians  pushed  out  in  their  insecure 
craft  for  this  sea,  driven  away  by  the  Malay-Hindu  in- 
vasion or  by  interracial  feuds. 

The  pioneer,  according  to  the  legend,  was  Hawaii- 
uli-kai-oo,  Hawaii  and  the  Dotted  Sea,  a  great  fisher- 
man and  navigator.  He  sailed  toward  the  Pleiades 
from  his  unknown  home  in  the  far  West,  and  arrived  at 
eastern  islands.  So  pleased  was  he  with  them,  that  he 
returned  to  his  western  birthplace  for  his  family,  and 
brought  them  to  Polynesia. 

Other  Polynesians  left  the  Asiatic  archipelago  about 
the  end  of  the  first  century,  and  went  to  many  islands. 
Finally  they  reached  the  Samoan,  Tongan,  Marquesan, 
Paumotuan,  and  Society  groups,  and  Easter  Island  and 
'New  Zealand.  In  pushing  eastward  they  skirted 
Papua,  but  were  unable  to  stay,  because  the  Papuans, 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  345 

whom  the  Polynesians  had  long  ago  driven  out  of  the 
Asiatic  archipelago,  were  stronger  than  the  emigrants. 
They  next  tried  Fiji,  and  tarried  there  longest,  leaving 
those  powerful  imprints  on  the  Papuans  in  appearance 
and  language  that  make  Fiji  the  anomaly  of  Melanesia. 
But  the  Fiji-Papuans  at  last  drove  them  out,  and  they 
left  with  blood  in  their  eyes.  When  the  whites  found 
the  Marquesans  in  the  sixteenth  century,  they  were 
building  at  Vaitahu  great  war-canoes  to  "attack  the 
black  people  who  used  bows  and  arrows."  No  living 
Marquesan  had  ever  seen  them  nor  could  they  have  at- 
tained Fiji  in  any  strength,  yet  the  historical  hate  per- 
sisted. 

The  Marquesans  of  the  north  said  their  race  came 
from  Hawaii,  and  those  of  the  south  from  Vavao. 
Seventeen  places  they  had  stopped  at  in  their  great  mi- 
gration eastward,  they  said. 

Pu  te  metani  me  Vevau 
A  anu  te  tai  o  Hawa-ii ! 
Pu  atu  te  metani  me  Hawa-ii 
A  anu  te  ao  e  Vevau ! 
Blow  winds  from  Vavao 
And  cool  the  sea  of  Hawaii ! 
Blow  back,  winds  from  Hawaii, 
And  cool  the  air  of  Vavao ! 

That  was  the  Marquesan  legendary  chant,  the  primal 
command  of  their  God  after  creation.  Vevau  and 
Hawaii  were  placed  in  their  former  abode  toward  India 
(Hawaii  being  undoubtedly  Java;  and  Vevau  being 
Vavao,  in  Malagasy)  ;  but  they  had  brought  the  names 
with  them,  and  when  they  reached  the  present  Ameri- 


346  MYSTIC  ISLES 

can  territory,  of  which  Honolulu  is  the  capital,  they 
called  it  Hawaii,  as  they  had  an  island  of  the  Samoan 
group,  Sawaii.  It  was  in  the  fifth  century  they  peo- 
pled the  now  American  Hawaii,  and  they  remained  un- 
known there  until  the  eleventh,  when  Marquesans, 
Tahitians,  and  Samoans  began  to  pour  in  on  them,  and 
continued  to  do  so  for  a  few  generations.  Then  the 
present  Hawaiians  were  isolated  and  forgotten  for 
twenty-one  generations  until  rediscovery  by  Captain 
Cook  in  1778. 

They  gave  the  old  names  to  Polynesia  that  they  knew 
in  Asia,  as  all  over  the  world  emigrants  carry  their  home 
names,  not  only  Hawaii,  or  Savaii,  for  Java,  but 
Moorea,  a  Javan  place,  to  the  island  near  Tahiti ;  Bora- 
Bora  from  Sumatra  to  a  Society  island;  Puna  of  Bor- 
neo to  places  in  Tahiti,  Kauai,  and  Hawaii ;  Ouahou  of 
Borneo  to  Oahu,  on  which  Honolulu  is;  and  Molokai, 
from  the  Moluccas,  to  another  island  of  Hawaii.  One 
might  cite  hundreds  of  examples,  all  going  to  prove 
their  far-away  origin,  as  Florida,  San  Francisco,  and 
Los  Angeles,  New  England,  New  York,  and  Albany, 
indicate  theirs. 

That  there  were  any  inhabitants  in  the  South  Sea 
islands  occupied  by  the  Polynesians  is  improbable  but 
a  race  of  mighty  stone-carvers  had  swept  through  that 
ocean,  perhaps  many  thousands  of  years  before,  and 
had  left  in  the  Ladrones  and  in  Easter  Islands  monu- 
ments and  statues  now  existing  which  are  a  profound 
mystery  to  the  ethnologist,  the  archaeologist,  and  the  en- 
gineer. If  the  Polynesians  came  upon  any  of  the  stone 
builders,  they  had  killed  or  absorbed  them. 

The  interpretation  of  the  curious  ideographs  carved 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  347 

on  wood  in  Easter  Island  by  some  of  the  Polynesians 
there  half  a  century  ago  would  denote  there  had  been 
intercourse  with  the  people  who  had  made  them,  and 
who  were  not  the  Polynesians. 

Once  in  Samoa,  and  finally  at  home  there,  after  their 
Fiji  disaster,  they  had  gone  adventuring,  or  the  canoe 
drift  of  unfortunates  caught  by  wind  and  tide  had 
brought  populations  to  all  the  other  Polynesian  islands, 
and  principally  to  'Tahiti.  This  island  in  the  center  of 
Polynesia,  and  especially  favored  by  nature,  had  been  a 
source  of  growth  and  distribution  of  the  race,  the  Pau- 
motus,  New  Zealand,  and  probably  the  Marquesas,  and 
Hawaii  having  been  stocked  from  it,  the  language  de- 
veloping furthest  in  it,  and  customs,  refinements,  and 
leisure  reaching  their  highest  pitch  in  the  marvelous  cul- 
ture, savage  though  it  was,  which  astounded  the  Euro- 
peans. Yet  all  these  people  remained  curious  as  to 
what  might  be  beyond  the  distance,  and  a  hundred  years 
ago  were  fitting  out  exploring  expeditions  to  search  for 
Utupu,  a  Utopia  from  which  the  god  Tao  introduced 
the  cocoanut-tree.  They  looked  to  the  westward  for 
the  mystic  land  of  their  forefathers,  as  from  Ireland  to 
India  the  happy  isles  of  the  west  was  a  myth.  The 
mariners  of  Erin  had  long  seen  the  Tir-n'an-Oge  just 
beyond  the  horizon. 

The  Tahitians  had  a  legend  of  the  god  Maui,  that 
"he  brought  the  earth  up  from  the  depths  of  the  ocean, 
and  when  mankind  suffered  from  the  prolonged  absence 
of  the  sun  and  lived  mournfully  in  obscurity,  with  no 
ripening  fruits,  Maui  stopped  the  sun  and  regulated  its 
course,  so  as  to  make  day  and  night  equal,  as  they  are 
in  Tahiti." 


348  MYSTIC  ISLES 

Does  not  this  hark  back  to  a  clime  where  the  in- 
equality of  day  and  night  was  greater  than  in  the 
tropics? 

Lieutenant  Bovis  of  the  French  navy,  who  seventy 
years  ago,  after  ten  years  of  study  in  Tahiti,  wrote  his 
conclusions,  said  that  after  him  it  would  be  useless  to 
hunt  in  the  memories  of  the  living  for  anything  of  the 
past,  for  the  old  men  were  dead  or  dying,  and  those  now 
in  middle  age  did  not  even  speak  or  understand  the  old 
language  in  which  the  records  were  told.  He  had,  he 
said,  arrived  in  Tahiti  when  the  real  Tahiti,  the  Tahiti 
of  the  true  native,  the  Tahiti  unspoiled  by  European 
civilization,  was  only  a  memory,  but  by  years  of  labor 
he  had  taken  from  the  lips  of  the  venerable  their  recol- 
lections of  conditions  in  their  childhood  and  early  man- 
hood, and  what  their  fathers  had  told  them,  and  by  com- 
parison he  had  been  able  to  write  intelligently  of  former 
times. 

If  Bovis  found  the  real  Tahiti  no  longer  existent  sev- 
enty years  ago,  what  must  I  look  for  when  two  genera- 
tions or  three  had  died  since,  and  swift  steamships 
coursed  where  only  the  clipper  had  sailed?  Yet  Tahiti 
was  the  least  spoiled  of  islands  on  liner  routes,  because 
France  being  so  far  from  it,  and  the  French  such  poor 
business  men,  they  had  not  exploited  the  natives  except 
in  the  way  of  taxes.  The  bureaucracy  lived  on  the  im- 
posts, but  they  had  not  reformed  the  people  by  laws  and 
punishments,  and  made  them  see  the  wisdom  of  acqui- 
escence in  a  scheme  of  regular  work,  as  had  the  British 
missionary  government  in  Tahiti  and  the  American  mis- 
sionary government  in  Hawaii,  in  the  name  of  an  aveng- 
ing and  critical  Lord.  Xo  people  believed  in  the  dignity 


349 

of  labor  more  than  the  Tahitians,  because  they  refused 
to  do  any  more  than  was  requisite  for  health,  cleanli- 
ness, comfort,  and  pleasure,  and  saw  no  more  dignity  or 
greater  indignity  in  helping  me  on  with  my  boots  or 
bringing  me  my  dinner  or  massaging  my  body  than  in 
listening  to  a  sermon  or  catching  fish. 

They  thought  absurd  and  artificial  the  ideas  foisted 
by  politicians,  merchants,  and  lawyers  that  it  was  digni- 
fied to  sit  in  an  office,  to  sell  goods,  or  to  draw  up  agree- 
ments, or  undignified  to  disembowel  a  pig,  make  a  net, 
or  dig  an  oven.  They  saw  governors  and  bankers 
spend  all  day  chasing  a  boar  or  angling  for  a  fish  which 
they  did  not  eat  when  they  possessed  it.  They  thought 
them  queer,  and  that  their  own  regimen  of  work  and 
play  was  more  sensible. 

"What  land  is  this?"  asked  Cook,  and  understanding 
him,  the  Tahitians  answered,  (fOtaiti  OWL"  or,  "This  is 
Tahiti." 

Cook  put  it  down  as  Otaheite,  pronounced  by  him 
Otahytee.  It  was  Cook's  carpenter  who  was  building 
a  house  for  a  chief,  a  friend  of  Cook's,  and  lost  all  his 
tools  during  the  visit  of  the  high  priest  of  the  god  Hiro 
and  his  acolytes.  Hiro  was  the  first  king  in  their  myths, 
and,  until  Christianity  came,  the  god  of  business. 
When  Cook  sailed  away,  the  tools  were  taken  to  the 
marae,  or  temple  of  Hiro,  where  the  priest  said  he  would 
cause  the  prized  tools  to  reproduce  their  kind,  like  fruit. 
He  planted  them  in  a  field  near  by  and  watched  for  re- 
sults. The  lack  of  any  result  except  rust  was  an  able 
argument  for  the  Christian  missionaries,  when  they 
came,  to  destroy  his  cult  by  laughing  at  the  foolishness 
of  his  ideas  and  the  weakness  of  his  god. 


350  MYSTIC  ISLES 

The  discoverers  reported  that  the  Tahitians  and  all 
other  Polynesians  were  thieves  and  liars,  for  the  reason 
that  they  often  seized  pieces  of  iron,  tools,  and  firearms 
that  they  saw  on  the  ships  or  ashore  in  the  houses  oc- 
cupied by  the  first  whites,  and  then  lied  about  their  ac- 
tions. The  whites  killed  scores  for  these  crimes,  one  of 
the  initial  murders  of  Cook's  crew  being  the  shooting  of 
Chief  Kapupuu  as  he  departed  in  his  canoe  from  their 
ship  with  some  bits  of  metal  he  had  taken.  Malo,  the 
native  historian,  who  heard  the  account  from  eye-wit- 
nesses, explained  the  incident  as  follows,  first  mention- 
ing the  sighting  of  Cook's  vessels  and  the  wonder  of  the 
natives : 

One  said  to  another,  "What  is  that  great  thing  with 
branches?"  Others  said,  "It  is  a  forest  that  has  slid  down  into 
the  sea,"  and  the  gabble  and  noise  was  great.  Then  the  chiefs 
ordered  some  natives  to  go  in  a  canoe  and  observe  and  examine 
well  that  wonderful  thing.  They  went,  and  when  they  came  to 
the  ship,  they  saw  the  iron  that  was  attached  to  the  outside  of 
the  ship,  and  they  were  greatly  rejoiced  at  the  quantity  of  iron. 

Because  the  iron  was  known  before  that  time  from  wood 
with  iron  [in  or  on  it]  that  had  formerly  drifted  ashore,  but  it 
was  in  small  quantity,  and  here  was  plenty.  And  they  entered 
on  board,  and  they  saw  the  people  with  white  foreheads,  bright 
eyes,  loose  garments,  corner-shaped  heads,  and  unintelligible 
speech. 

Then  they  thought  that  the  people  [on  board]  were  all 
women,  because  their  heads  were  so  like  the  women's  heads  of 
that  period.  They  observed  the  quantity  of  iron  on  board  of 
the  ship,  and  they  were  filled  with  wonder  and  delight. 

Then  they  returned  and  told  the  chiefs  what  they  had  seen, 
and  how  great  a  quantity  of  iron.  On  hearing  this,  one  of  the 
warriors  of  the  chief  said,  "I  will  go  and  take  forcible  posses- 


hoto  from  Dr.  Theo.  P.  Cleveland 


A  human  bronze 


Early  morning  at  Papenoo 


III  I 


o 

— 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  351 

sion  of  this  booty,  for  to  plunder  is  my  business  and  means  of 
living." 

The  chiefs  consented.  Then  this  warrior  went  on  board  of 
the  ship  and  took  away  some  of  the  iron  on  board,  and  he  was 
shot  at  and  was  killed.  His  name  was  Kapupuu.  The  canoes 
[around  the  ship]  fled  away  and  reported  that  Kapupuu  had 
been  killed  by  a  ball  from  a  squirt-gun. 

And  that  same  night  guns  were  fired  and  rockets  were  thrown 
up.  They  [the  natives]  thought  it  was  a  god,  and  they  called 
his  name  Lonomakua,  and  they  thought  there  would  be  war. 

Then  the  chiefess  named  Kamakahelei,  mother  of  Kaumualii, 
said,  "Let  us  not  fight  against  our  god;  let  us  please  him  that 
he  may  be  favorable  to  us."  Then  Kamakahelei  gave  her  own 
daughter  as  a  woman  to  Lono.  Lelemahoalani  was  her  name; 
she  was  older  sister  of  Kaumualii.  And  Lono  [Captain  Cook] 
slept  with  that  woman,  and  the  Kauai  women  prostituted  them- 
selves to  the  foreigners  for  iron. 

Cook  was  one  of  the  best  of  the  navigators  of  the 
South  Seas,  a  devout  churchman,  and  a  believer  in  the 
decalogue  of  Moses.  He  thought  stealing  or  lying 
odious  before  the  Lord  and  men.  But  the  Polynesians 
did  not  so  think.  Most  of  their  possessions  were  in 
common,  and  telling  the  truth  was  unimportant.  If 
one  asked  them  about  anything  they  had  no  interest  in, 
they  might  tell  the  truth  or  might  not.  If  they  had  in- 
terests, these  were  served  by  their  replies.  This  is  as  in 
diplomacy  to-day,  when  the  interests  of  one's  country 
allows  prevarication,  and  even  in  Christian  ethics  both 
patriotism  and  self-preservation,  as  well  as  hospitality, 
permit  flat  falsehood.  Our  own  spies  are  honest  heroes, 
and  the  man  who  would  not  deceive  a  man  who  sought 
to  kill  him  or  burn  his  house  would  be  considered  a  fool 
and  not  worth  saving. 


352  MYSTIC  ISLES 

"There  is  plenty  more  in  the  kitchen,"  we  sajr  to 
guests  out  of  hospitality  and  pride,  though  the  kitchen 
is  as  bare  as  Mother  Hubbard's  cupboard.  She  could 
not  lie  to  the  dog. 

Xow,  to  the  native  who  saw  all  around  him  on  the 
ship  huge  masses  of  the  material  most  precious  to  him 
in  the  world,  it  was  as  if  an  American  in  Yucatan  saw  in 
a  native  hut  heaps  of  gold  and  diamonds  not  valued  by 
the  savage.  Suppose  the  savage  left  the  American 
alone  with  the  treasure ! 

But  the  Tahitians  did  not  murder  for  blood  lust,  had 
no  assassination,  and  virtually  no  theft.  Our  own 
Anglo-Saxon  law  laid  down  the  maxim,  "Caveat  emp- 
tor!"  "Let  the  buyer  beware!"  which  meant  that  the 
truth  notwithstanding,  the  buyer  must  not  let  the  seller 
of  anything  cheat  him  by  failure  to  state  the  exact 
facts  or  faults,  and  expect  the  law  to  remedy  his  stupid- 

ity. 

Chief  Tetuanui's  word  was  his  bond  because  he  had 
learned  that  square-dealing  brought  him  peace  of  mind, 
but  other  natives  had  found  out  that  to  cheat  the  white 
man  first  was  the  only  possible  way 'of  keeping  even  with 
him.  The  maxim  of  the  king  of  Apamama,  quoted  by 
Ivan  Stroganoff,  was  pertinent.  Hospitality  was  as 
sacred  to  the  Tahitians  as  to  the  old  Irish.  It  was 
shameful  not  to  give  a  guest  anything  he  desired. 

"Es  su  casa,  senor!"  said  the  Spaniard,  and  did  not 
mean  it;  but  the  Tahitians  literally  did  mean  that  the 
visitor  was  welcome  to  all  his  valuables,  and  did  not  re- 
serve his  family,  as  did  the  don. 

The  chevalier  of  the  Legion  of  Honor  upon  whose 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  353 

mat  I  sat  was  emphatic  as  to  the  respect  of  the  old 
Tahitians  for  their  chiefs. 

"It  was  the  whole  code,"  said  he,  "and  when  the 
French  broke  it  down  they  destroyed  us.  There  is 
Teriieroo  a  Teriierooterai,  whose  family  were  chiefs  of 
Punaauia  for  generations,  shifted  to  Papenoo.  Each 
governor  or  admiral  made  these  transfers  here,  as  in  the 
Marquesas  and  all  the  islands,  with  the  primary  object 
of  lessening  native  cohesion,  of  Frenchifying  us.  They 
ruined  our  highest  aspirations  and  our  manners." 

I  had  seen  something  of  the  same  sweeping  away  of  a 
code  and  the  resultant  evils  and  degradation  in  Japan. 
When  Bushido  imposed  itself  on  all  above  the  herd, 
they  had  a  sense  of  honor  not  surpassed  by  the  people  of 
any  nation ;  but  commerce,  the  destruction  of  the  castes 
of  samurai,  heimin,  and  eta,  the  plunging  of  a  military 
people  into  business  and  competition  with  Western  cun- 
ning, and  the  lacquer  of  Christianity  which  had  done 
little  more  than  Occidentalize  to  a  considerable  degree 
a  few  thousands,  without  giving  them  the  practice  of 
the  golden  rule,  or  an  appreciation  of  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  had  robbed  the  Japanese  of  an  ancient  code  of 
morality  and  honor,  and  replaced  it  with  nothing  worth 
while — an  insatiable  ambition  to  equal  Occidental  peo- 
ples and  to  conquer  Oriental  ones,  and  a  thousand  fac- 
tories which  killed  women  and  children. 

"We  were  divided  into  three  distinct  castes,"  said 
Tetuanui.  "The  Arii,  or  princes;  Raatira,  or  small 
chiefs  and  simple  landed  proprietors;  and  the  Mana- 
hune,  or  proletariat.  Alliances  between  Arii  and  Raa- 
tira made  an  intermediate  class — Eietoai.  There  was 


354  MYSTIC  ISLES 

also  a  caste  of  priests  subject  to  the  chief,  their  power 
all  derived  from  him,  but  yet  tending  to  become  heredi- 
tary by  the  priests  instructing  their  sons  in  the  cere- 
monies and  by  taking  care  of  the  temple." 

"That 's  the  way  the  Aaron  family  got  control  of  the 
Jewish  priesthood,"  I  interpolated.  "They  gave  the 
people  what  they  wanted,  first  a  golden  calf  god,  and 
then  an  ark,  and  they  had  charge  of  both." 

The  chief  frowned.  He  was  a  confirmed  Bible 
reader,  and  the  Old  Testament  was  so  much  like  the 
Tahitian  legends  that  he  believed  every  word  of  it. 

"The  Arii,"  he  said,  "were  sacred  and  had  miraculous 
strength  and  powers.  The  food  they  touched  was  for 
others  poison.  There  was  a  head  in  each  Arii  family  to 
whom  the  others  were  subject;  he  was  often  an  infant, 
and  almost  always  a  young  man,  for  the  eldest  son  of 
the  chief  was  chief  and  the  father  only  regent.  This 
custom  continued  until  comparatively  recently  in  most 
families  besides  those  of  the  Arii.  The  Arii  were  the 
descendants  of  the  last  conquerors  of  these  islands. 
But  their  advent  must  have  been  ancient,  for  their 
power  was  uncontested,  and  their  rights  were  so  many, 
their  duties  so  few,  and  the  devotion  of  the  people  to 
them  was  so  great,  that  only  centuries  could  have  estab- 
lished them  so  firmly.  Probably  they  came  after  the 
Raatira.  The  Raatira  were  separated  by  too  great  a 
barrier  to  have  assisted  in  the  conquest.  Xo  Raatira 
could  become  an  Arii;  no  Arii  a  Raatira.  The  latter 
were  closer  to  the  commoners,  and  paid  the  same  respect 
to  the  Arii  as  did  the  Manahune. 

"If  an  Arii  woman  wedded  a  Raatira  man,  the  mar- 
riage was  said  to  be  with  a  taata  ino,  ino  meaning  lit- 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  355 

erally  bad,  and  taata  man.  This  term  applied  to  all  not 
Arii,  and  indicated  the  contempt  of  the  Arii  for  all  be- 
low them.  The  Arii  had  many  words  solely  for  their 
own  use,  and  tapii,  or  prohibited,  to  all  others ;  they  had 
a  hundred  privileges.  The  Raatira  were  probably  the 
power  broken  by  the  Arii.  The  Raatira  had  conquered 
the  Manahune,  and  were  themselves  bested  by  the  Arii, 
the  newest  come." 

The  chief  sighed.  He  was  like  an  old  Irish  story- 
teller recounting  the  departed  glories  of  Erin. 

I  read  to  him  in  French  Bovis'  opinions  that  the  Raa- 
tira, defeated,  retained  part  of  their  lands,  served  the 
new  masters,  and  kept  in  subjection  the  people  they  had 
themselves  beaten.  They  attached  themselves  to  the 
Arii  of  their  district,  fought  for  them  in  their  quarrels 
or  wars,  and  were  consulted  in  assemblies,  and  allowed 
to  speak  to  the  crowd.  I  recalled  that  this  was  a  priv- 
ilege dearly  prized  by  all  Polynesians,  the  lack  of  read- 
ing and  writing  having,  as  in  Greece,  developed  oratory 
and  orators  to  a  remarkable  excellence.  I  was  in  Ha- 
waii when  the  offices  of  the  first  legislature  under  the 
American  flag  were  campaigned  for,  after  years  of  re- 
pression by  the  sugar  planters'  oligarchy,  and  I  had 
heard  the  natives  speak  a  score  of  times,  and  always 
with  delight  and  wonder.  They  valued  free  speech. 

"The  Arii  were  shrewd,"  said  Chief  Tetuanui,  "and 
early  invented  a  plan  for  keeping  the  Raatira  in  sub- 
jection. If  two  Raatira  disputed  possession  of  land, 
the  one  who  believed  himself  defrauded  could  yield  to 
the  king  or  a  member  of  the  royal  family  the  land,  to 
which  he  usually  had  no  right  at  all.  The  Arii  thus  got 
possession  of  more  and  more  land  from  time  to  time, 


356  MYSTIC  ISLES 

and  the  Raatira  were  loath  to  contend  among  them- 
selves. 

"The  Manahune  owned  nothing  by  law,  but  they 
lived  on  the  lands  of  Arii  and  Raatira,  and  were  seldom 
evicted.  They  had  the  fruits  of  their  labor  with  a  tithe 
or  so  for  their  masters;  they  left  to  their  children  their 
accumulations,  tentative,  but  actual,  and  their  service 
was  pleasant;  more  in  the  nature  of  gifts  than  rent. 
The  Manahune  could  not  rise  above  his  caste  except  by 
the  rare  nomination  of  the  king,  but  they  could  become 
Teuteu  Arii,  or  servants  of  an  Arii,  and  might  thus 
acquire  immense  importance. 

"Like  the  eunuchs  at  courts  or  the  mistresses  of  the 
noble  and  rich,"  I  remarked. 

The  chief  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"The  Manahune  might  become  a  priest  or  even  join 
the  society  of  the  Arioi,"  he  rejoined.  "The  govern- 
ment was  simple.  The  will  of  the  prince  was  supreme, 
but  by  custom  things  ran  smoothly,  and  the  prince,  or 
Arii,  had  seldom  to  urge  his  power.  There  were,  of 
course,  instances  of  extortion,  of  bursts  of  anger,  of 
feuds,  of  jealousies;  but  most  of  the  time  the  Raatira 
saw  that  the  Arii  were  well  served,  and  were  their  inter- 
mediates with  the  commoners.  The  regular  obligations 
of  the  inferior  classes  were  to  meet  at  certain  times  to 
hand  to  the  chiefs  presents,  food,  clothing  or  useful  in- 
struments, and  they  sought  to  exceed  one  another  in 
generosity.  They  met  to  build  houses,  to  repair  them, 
or  to  construct  the  rock  foundations  of  houses,  accord- 
ing to  the  importance  of  the  chief,  or  Arii.  They  built 
the  canoes,  made  the  nets,  and  did  the  fishing.  The  sea 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  357 

was  divided  into  properties,  as  was  the  land.     The  Arii 
had  the  reefs  where  the  fish  most  abounded. 

"War  was  declared  with  religious  ceremonies.  Sac- 
rifices were  the  basis  of  these  ceremonies,  and  a  human 
victim  the  most  efficacious.  The  augurs  examined  the 
entrails,  the  auspices,  much  as  did  the  pagans  of  old. 
Certain  priests  had  certain  duties.  The  Taliua  Oripo, 
night  runners,  reported  the  movements  of  the  enemy. 
They  were  professional  war  spies,  and  they  acquired  a 
marvelous  ability.  Sometimes  they  were  able  to  lead 
their  party  so  as  to  surprise  the  enemy  and  slaughter 
them,  but  usually  there  were  preliminaries  to  war  which 
warned  the  other  side.  A  herald  was  sent  in  the  cos- 
tume of  a  great  warrior.  He  was  of  high  birth  or  fa- 
mous for  his  fighting.  He  delivered  himself  of  his  mis- 
sion ceremoniously,  and  was  never  attacked.  Every 
locality  had  its  war-chants,  its  songs  of  defiance.  To- 
day only  a  few  fragments  survive.  Wars  were  waged 
mostly  on  account  of  the  ambitions  of  princes,  as  to-day 
in  Europe  and  Asia.  But  the  effort  of  Christianity  to 
oust  paganism  in  Tahiti  brought  about  many  sangui- 
nary conflicts,  and  plainly  God  was  with  the  mission- 
aries, who  caused  the  battles.  In  1815  the  Battle  of 
Feipi  gave  Tahiti  to  Pomare  the  Great,  and  to  the  Prot- 
estant ministers,  who  were  his  backers.  Over  three 
hundred  were  killed.  A  woman,  the  queen  of  the  island 
of  Huahine,  commanded  in  the  absence  of  Pomare. 

"Sometimes  after  a  battle  the  vanquished  sent  heralds 
to  signify  their  yielding  and  to  know  the  wish  of  the 
victor;  they  disbanded  their  troops,  left  their  arms  on 
the  field,  and  the  war  was  over.  Usually  the  defeated 


358  MYSTIC  ISLES 

warriors  were  allowed  to  return  home  without  more 
ado  after  their  confession  of  failure,  but  when  the  rage 
was  great,  the  victors,  with  furious  cries,  gave  the  signal 
of  carnage,  and  slew  all  they  met.  If  the  prince  beaten 
escaped  the  first  consequences  of  the  rout,  he  was  safe 
and  lost  only  a  portion  of  his  territory,  and  in  some 
wars  only  his  prestige.  He  remained  respected,  and 
his  privileges  were  about  the  same  as  before.  The 
Arii  were  all  of  the  same  tribe,  all  related,  and  though 
they  ruled  different  districts  and  valleys,  and  fought 
one  another,  they  would  not  degrade  one  of  their  own 
family  and  rank.  Thus  power  remained  in  the  same 
families,  princes,  chiefs,  and  priests,  and  only  the  Raa- 
tira  and  the  Manahune,  the  bourgeoisie  and  the  com- 
moners, really  suffered. 

"We  copied  you  in  Europe,"  I  interposed.  "There 
the  kings,  kaisers,  and  czars  took  care  not  to  lower  the 
dignity  of  monarchy,  and  are  virtually  all  related. 
None  of  them  ever  deposed  another  of  long  enthroning, 
and  none  of  them  has  been  killed  in  a  battle  in  cen- 
turies." 

"Aue!"  exclaimed  the  chief.  "loba  said,  'Wisdom  is 
no  longer  with  the  old.' ' 

"Job  talked  like  a  revolutionist,"  I  said.  "That 
would  be  treason  among  the  diplomats  and  lawyers  of 
Europe  and  America.  How  did  women  get  along  in 
your  father's  day?" 

Tetuanui  got  up  to  stretch  his  huge  body.  He  had 
been  squatting  on  his  haunches  for  an  hour. 

"Let  Haamoura,  my  wife,  say  as  to  them,"  he  re- 
turned laughingly.  "She  knows  all  the  old  ways.  I 
must  see  if  the  nets  are  to  be  stretched  to-day." 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  359 

Mme.  Tetuanui  and  I  had  a  lengthy  confabulation. 
Xo  Tahitian  was  better  informed  than  she  upon  the 
former  status  of  her  sex  in  Tahiti,  and  from  her  I 
gained  a  lively  summary. 

Woman  was  inferior  among  the  old  Tahitians.  Man 
had  here  as  everywhere  so  ordained,  and  religion  had 
fixed  her  position  by  taboos,  as  among  the  Hebrews. 
She  was  often  merely  a  servant,  yet  she  maintained  a 
unique  sex  freedom.  Her  body  was  her  own,  and  not 
her  husband's  as  in  the  English  common  law.  She  pre- 
pared the  man's  food  and  never  sat  at  meals  with  him. 
If  she  ate  at  the  same  time,  which  was  seldom,  she  sat 
at  a  distance,  but  near  enough  to  hear  his  commands. 
It  is  so  to-day  when  Tahitian  men  gather  for  feasting 
without  foreigners,  as  in  the  Philippines,  Japan,  and 
China,  and  in  many  European  countries.  The  Haus- 
frau  of  the  small  merchant,  laborer,  or  farmer  is  a 
drudge.  In  Japan  the  woman  remains  subject  to  the 
hourly  whims  and  wants  of  her  husband,  and  to  his  fre- 
quent infidelity,  though  she  is  true  to  him. 

The  Tahiti  wife  had  the  care  of  the  canoe,  the  pad- 
dles, and  all  the  fishing  and  hunting  things,  and  she 
accompanied  her  husband  often  in  these  pursuits.  The 
husband  had  to  make  the  fire,  prepare  the  oven,  kill  the 
pig  or  dog  or  fowl,  and  do  the  outside  chores;  but  she 
had  a  lesser  position  than  he  at  all  public  observances. 
She  could  not  become  a  priest  or  enter  the  temple,  but 
must  remain  always  at  a  distance  from  the  marae.  Yet 
she  could  be  a  queen  or  a  chiefess,  and  as  such  was  as 
powerful  as  a  man,  making  war  in  person,  and  often 
leading  her  troops  valiantly.  The  Tahitian  women 
were  nearly  as  strong  as  the  men  and  mentally  their 


860  MYSTIC  ISLES 

full  equal.  They  wound  their  husbands  around  their 
fingers  or  treated  them  cruelly  in  many  instances,  as- 
tonishing the  whites  by  their  independence.  Only  re- 
ligion, the  taboos,  held  them  in  any  restraint. 

If  a  queen  bore  a  child  by  an  unknown  father,  the 
child  was  as  royal  as  if  the  descendant  of  a  long  line 
of  kings ;  but  if  the  father  was  notoriously  a  commoner, 
the  child  remained  a  prince,  though  not  so  high  of  rank 
as  if  his  father  had  been  an  Arii.  If  a  king  had  chil- 
dren by  a  woman  beneath  his  rank,  they  had  no  rights 
from  their  father,  but  held  a  mixed  position  propor- 
tioned to  the  power  of  the  father.  He  established  their 
rank  by  his  personal  prestige,  as  the  kings  of  Europe 
forced  their  bastards  on  the  courts.  Sixty  years  ago 
Tamatoa,  King  of  Raiatea  of  the  Society  Islands,  him- 
self the  highest  born  of  all  the  chiefs  of  the  archipalago, 
was  forced  to  adopt  a  child  of  King  Pomare  of  Tahiti 
to  succeed  him  because  his  own  children  were  by  a 
woman  of  the  people. 

The  woman  thus  had  an  advantage  over  the  man  in 
being  able  to  transmit  her  rank  to  her  children,  a  sur- 
vival of  the  matriarchate  custom  once  ruling  the  world. 
Polygamy  was  rarely  indulged,  though  not  forbidden. 
A  chief  here  and  there  might  have  two  or  three  wives. 
Women  were  allowed  only  one  husband,  but  often 
avowed  lovers  were  tolerated,  if  not  feared,  by  the  hus- 
band. Mr.  Banks,  president  of  the  Royal  Astronomical 
Society  of  England,  was  horrified  after  he  had  made 
love  to  Queen  Oberea  of  Papara  in  the  absence  of  her 
husband  to  find  her  attendant  was  a  cavalier  e  servente. 
His  Anglican  morals  were  shocked.  He  had  thought 
himself  the  only  male  sinner  by  her  complacence. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  361 

Before  Christianity  was  forced  on  them,  the  Tahitians 
married  in  the  same  rank,  and  with  considerable  right 
to  choice.  The  tie  might  be  dissolved  by  the  same  au- 
thority binding  it,  the  chief  or  head  of  the  clan.  In- 
equality of  rank,  or  near  consanguinity,  were  the  only 
obstacles  to  marriage.  Rank  might  be  overcome,  but 
never  the  other.  It  was  as  in  China,  where  Confucius 
himself  laid  down  the  law :  "A  man  in  taking  a  wife  does 
not  choose  one  of  the  same  surname  as  himself."  And 
in  one  of  the  Chinese  commentaries  the  following  rea- 
son is  given  for  this  law:  "When  husband  and  wife  are 
of  the  same  surname,  their  children  do  not  do  well  and 
multiply."  The  prohibited  degrees  were  more  distant 
than  among  us.  It  was  a  horror  of  incest  that  had  led 
to  the  general  custom  all  over  Polynesia  of  exchanging 
children  for  adoption.  Only  this  explanation  could  rec- 
oncile it  with  the  almost  superstitious  love  the  Poly- 
nesian father  and  mother  have  for  children.  Their  feel- 
ing surpasses  the  parental  affection  prevailing  in  the  re- 
mainder of  the  world,  yet  adoption  is  a  stronger  bond 
than  blood.  No  child  was  raised  by  its  own  genitors. 
The  Tetuanuis  had  brought  up  twenty-five,  all  freely 
given  them  at  birth  or  after  weaning.  The  taboo  was 
strict. 

Illegitimate  children  were  as  welcome  as  others.  The 
husband  might  have  been  so  jealous  as  to  meditate  kill- 
ing his  wife;  but  when  her  child  was  born,  although  he 
knew  it  to  be  a  bastard,  he  gave  it  the  same  love  and  care 
as  his  own.  There  were  exceptions,  but  one  might  cite 
on  the  opposite  side  innumerable  cases  where,  despite 
the  most  open  adultery,  the  husband  has  taken  his  wife's 
offspring  for  his  own.  It  was  well  that  this  was  so,  for 


362  MYSTIC  ISLES 

adultery  was  so  habitual  that  were  bastards  not  made 
welcome,  there  would  have  been  much  suffering  by  chil- 
dren, innocent  themselves.  Here,  as  in  civilization, 
men  love  their  bastards  often  more  than  their  legitimate 
sons  and  daughters. 

This  prohibition  against  keeping  one's  own  must  have 
arisen  when  there  were  very  few  inhabitants  in  Tahiti, 
for  it  is  the  outcome  of  a  natural  guarding  against  sex- 
ual relationship  in  tribes  or  communities  where  all  are 
thrown  together  intimately,  and  stringent  opposition  to 
such  practices  needed  to  prevent  promiscuity.  One 
must  look,  as  in  the  case  of  taboos,  deeper  than  the  sur- 
face for  the  beginning  of  this  custom  of  trading  babies, 
for  that  is  what  it  often  amounted  to — friends  exchang- 
ing offspring  as  they  might  canoes. 

It  is  said  that  the  powerful  sentiment  among  histor- 
ical nations  opposing  marriage  between  brother  and  sis- 
ter and  other  close  kindred  originated  in  the  desire  to 
make  such  connections  odious,  to  preserve  virtue  and 
decency  among  those  in  hourly  intimacy.  Monarchs 
and  nations  long  refused  to  bend  to  it.  The  Ptolemies 
and  Pharaohs  married  incestuously ;  Cleopatra,  her 
brother.  The  Ptolemies  married  their  daughters,  as  did 
Artaxerxes,  who  wedded  Atossa.  The  Ballinese  mar- 
ried twins  of  different  sex.  Abraham  married  his  half- 
sister  by  the  same  father.  Moses's  father  married  his 
aunt.  Jacob  took  to  wife  two  sisters,  his  own  cousins. 
In  Great  Russia  until  this  century  a  father  married  his 
son  to  a  young  woman,  and  then  claimed  her  as  his  con- 
cubine. When  a  son  grew  up,  he  followed  his  father's 
example,  though  his  wife  was  old  and  with  many  chil- 
dren. The  Tamils  of  southeast  India,  the  Malaialais  of 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  363 

the  Kollimallais  hills,  have  the  same  custom.  Inbreed- 
ing maintains  a  fineness  of  breed,  but  at  the  cost  of  its 
vigor.  That  inbreeding  is  harmful  is  fairly  certain. 
Examples  to  the  contrary  are  numerous  in  human  and 
animal  life.  More  than  nine  hundred  residents  of  Nor- 
folk Island  are  descendants  of  the  mutineers  of  the 
British  ship  Bounty.  They  were  begat  by  eight  of  the 
mutineers,  and  intermarried  for  a  century.  They  show 
no  deterioration  from  this  cause. 

Hardly  any  crime  is  more  loathed  than  incest,  but 
the  abomination  grew  slowly  as  man  progressed.  Such 
ties  have  been  abhorrent  for  long  in  most  countries.  A 
belief  that  incestuous  children  were  weak  mentally  or 
physically  came  much  later  in  the  ages.  The  Poly- 
nesians must  have  remarked  that  inbreeding  accentuated 
the  faults  in  a  strain,  making  for  an  accumulation  of 
them.  This  would  be  a  very  far  advance  in  human  ob- 
servation; but  the  Polynesian,  by  experience,  or  knowl- 
edge brought  from  his  old  Asiatic  home,  must  have  held 
such  a  theory,  and  sought  in  the  system  of  adoption,  and 
in  not  bringing  up  consanguineous  children  together,  to 
ward  off  such  misfortune.  This  at  least  is  a  plausible 
reason  for  such  an  unnatural  practice  among  a  people 
so  unquestionably  child-lovers. 

The  Marquesans  had  no  totemism  to  save  them. 
There  were  no  exogamous  taboos.  The  tribe  or  clan 
was  the  chief  unit,  not  t>i€  family.  The  phratry  tie  was 
stronger  than  that  of  the  father  and  mother.  In  the 
totem  scheme  of  other  islands  and  continental  groups  all 
the  women  of  his  mother's  totem  were  taboo  to  a  man, 
though  their  relationship  might  be  remote.  Yet  as  hus- 
band and  wife  had  different  totems,  and  children  took 


364  MYSTIC  ISLES 

their  mothers'  totems,  a  man  might  in  rare  instances, 
even  with  this  barrier,  wed  his  own  daughter.  This  has 
happened  in  Buka  and  in  North  Bougainville. 

The  plan  of  adoption  in  Polynesia  is  matched  to  a 
degree  by  the  fosterage  common  in  Ireland  in  early 
days.  There  children  were  sent  to  be  reared  in  the  fam- 
ilies of  fellow-clansmen  of  wealth.  At  a  year  they  left 
their  own  thresholds,  and  their  fosterage  ended  only  at 
marriage.  Every  fostered  person  was  under  obliga- 
tion to  provide  for  the  old  age  of  his  foster-parents,  and 
the  affection  arising  from  this  relationship  was  usually 
greater  and  regarded  more  sacred  than  that  of  blood 
relationship.  This  is  true  to-day  of  the  Tahitians. 

"But  children  nowadays  are  often  brought  up  by  their 
own  parents,"  said  Mme.  Tetuanui,  rising  to  prepare 
the  dejeuner,  and  I  for  a  swim  in  the  lagoon,  "and  if 
adopted,  they  go  from  one  home  to  the  other  as  the}r 
will.  Parents  are  not  as  willing  as  before  to  let  go 
their  children ;  for  whereas  my  grandmother  had  fifteen, 
I  have  none,  and  few  of  us  have  many.  We  are  made 
sterile  by  your  civilization.  Tetuanui  and  I  were 
happy  and  able  to  persuade  the  mothers  of  twenty-five 
to  give  their  infants  to  us  because  we  were  childless  and 
were  chiefs  and  well-to-do.  Our  race  is  passing  so  fast 
through  the  miseries  the  white  has  brought  us  that  little 
ones  are  as  precious  as  life  itself." 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

i"he  reef  and  the  lagoon — Wonders  of  marine  life — Fishing  with  spears  and 
nets — Sponges  and  hermit  crabs — Fish  of  many  colors — Ancient  canoes 
of  Tahiti — A  visit  to  Vaihiria  and  legends  told  there. 

ABOUT  a  mile  from  the  beach  was  the  reef,  on 
which  the  breakers  beat  clamorously  or  almost 
inaudibly,  depending  on  the  wind  and  the  far- 
away surge  of  the  seas.  The  Passe  of  Rautirare  af- 
forded entrance  for  small  vessels.  It  was  an  opening 
in  the  wall  about  the  island  caused  by  the  Vairahaha,  the 
stream  which  emptied  into  the  lagoon  at  our  door,  and 
the  fresh  waters  of  which  had  ages  ago  prevented  the 
coral  zoophytes  from  building  a  structure  there,  as  at 
Papeete  and  all  other  passages.  Fresh  wrater  did  not 
agree  with  these  miraculous  architects  whose  material 
was  their  own  skeletons. 

I  went  out  toward  the  reef  many  mornings  in  a  little 
canoe  that  Tiura,  the  eldest  son  of  the  chief,  loaned  me. 
I  carried  from  the  house  a  paddle  and  three  harpoons 
of  different  sizes.  The  canoe  had  an  outrigger  and  was 
very  small,  so  that  it  moved  fast  through  the  usually 
still  lagoon,  propelled  by  the  broad-bladed  paddle.  In 
the  bottom  of  it  might  be  an  inch  of  water,  for  occasion- 
ally I  shipped  a  tiny  wave,  but  wetness  was  no  bother  in 
this  delicious  climate ;  a  pareu  was  easily  removed  if  vex- 
atious and  *  cocoanut-shell  was  an  ample  bale. 

Low  tide  was  at  sunrise,  and  warmed  with  my  fruit 
and  coffee,  and  the  happy  ia  ora  na,  Mam!  of  the  fam- 

3G5 


366  MYSTIC  ISLES 

ily,  I  paddled  to  the  reef  with  never-failing  expectation 
of  new  wonders.  The  marine  life  of  the  Tahiti  reef  is 
richer  than  anywhere  in  these  seas,  as  the  soil  of  the  is- 
land is  more  bountiful. 

At  that  state  of  the  tide  the  surf  barely  broke  upon 
the  reef,  and,  almost  uncovered,  its  treasures  were  ex- 
posed for  a  little  while  as  if  especially  for  me.  The  reef 
itself  was  a  marvel  of  contrivance  by  the  blind  animals 
which  had  died  to  raise  it.  If  I  had  been  brought  to  it 
hooded,  and  known  nothing  of  such  phenomena,  I  would 
have  sworn  it  was  an  old  concrete  levee.  The  top  was 
about  fifty  feet  wide,  as  level  as  a  floor,  pitted  with  in- 
numerable holes,  the  hiding-places  of  millions  of  living 
forms  which  fed  on  one  another,  and  were  continually 
replenished  by  the  rolling  billows.  The  wall  of  the  reef 
opposed  to  the  sea  was  a  rough  slope  from  the  summit 
to  the  bottom,  buttressed  against  the  attacks  of  storms, 
and  defended  by  chevanx-de-frise  such  as  the  Americans 
sank  in  the  Hudson  River  in  1777.  I  ventured  cau- 
tiously over  the  edge.  A  student  of  ancient  tactics 
would  have  found  there  all  the  old  defenses  in  coral — 
caltrops,  and  abatis,  molded  in  dark-gray  coral,  bat- 
tered and  shot-marked.  It  was  a  dream  of  a  sunken 
city  wall  of  old  Syracuse,  and  conjured  up  a  vision  of 
the  hoary  Archimedes  upon  it  before  the  inundation,  di- 
recting the  destruction,  by  his  burning-glass,  of  the 
enemy's  ships.  The  side  of  the  reef  toward  the  land  was 
as  sheer  as  an  engineer  could  make  it  with  a  plumb-line. 
The  coral  animals  had  as  accurate  a  measure  of  the  ver- 
tical as  of  defense  against  the  ocean. 

Over  this  levee  rolled  or  slid  a  dozen  kinds  of  shellfish 
spying  out  refuges  against  the  breakers  and  their  brother 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  367 

enemies  in  the  troughs  and  holes  of  the  coral  floor. 
With  my  small  spears  I  pried  out  dozens  of  them,  Maof 
starfish,  clams,  oysters,  furbelowed  clams,  sea-urchins, 
and  sponges.  The  mao  is  the  turbo,  the  queer  gastro- 
pod sold  in  the  market  in  Papeete.  He  lives  in  a  beau- 
tiful spiral  shell,  and  has  attached  to  him  a  round  piece 
of  polished  shell,  blue,  green,  brown,  or  yellow,  which  he 
puts  aside  when  he  wishes  to  feed  on  the  morsels  pass- 
ing his  door,  and  pulls  shut  when  he  wants  privacy.  He 
fits  himself  tightly  into  a  hollow  in  the  reef  and  dozes 
away  the  hours  behind  his  shield,  but  ready  to  open  it 
instantly  at  the  perception  of  his  favorite  food.  The 
mao  was  wedged  in  the  recess  so  cleverly  that  it  was 
difficult  to  extract  him  by  my  hand  alone.  His  portal 
I  kept  after  eating  him  raw  or  cooked,  to  have  set  in 
silver  as  an  exquisite  souvenir  of  my  visit.  These  jewels 
studded  the  drinking  cups  from  which  the  Vikings  drank 
"Skoal  to  the  Northland!" 

The  starfish  were  magnificent,  of  many  colors,  and 
one  with  fifteen  arms  covered  with  sharp,  gray  spines, 
and  underneath  pale  yellow,  fleshy  feelers  with  suckers 
like  a  sea-anemone.  These  were  as  pliant  as  rubber  in 
the  water,  but,  when  long  out,  as  hard  as  stone.  The 
sea-urchins  were  of  many  kinds,  some  with  large  spikes, 
as  firm  as  rock,  and  others  almost  as  brittle  as  glass, 
their  needles,  half  a  dozen  inches  long  and  sharp,  dan- 
gerous to  step  on  even  with  my  rubber-soled,  canvas 
shoes.  All  hues  were  these  urchins,  blood-red  and  heav- 
enly blue,  almost  black,  and  as  white  as  snow,  the  last 
with  a  double-star  etched  upon  his  shell.  Others  were 
round  like  blow-fish,  with  their  spickles  at  every  angle, 
menacing  in  look. 


368  MYSTIC  ISLES 

The  clams  and  oysters  were  small,  except  the  fur- 
belowed  clam,  whose  shell  is  fluted,  and  who  grows  to 
an  immense  size  in  the  atolls  of  the  Paumotus.  I  al- 
ways ate  my  fill  of  these  delicacies  raw  as  I  walked  along 
the  reef,  smashing  the  shells  to  get  at  the  inmates. 

When  the  tide  was  approaching  high  or  when  it  be- 
gan to  ebb  I  had  immortal  experiences  upon  the  reef. 
I  went  with  Tiura  or  with  the  chief  and  a  party,  and 
found  the  waves  dashing  and  foaming  upon  the  natural 
mole,  sweeping  over  it  with  the  noise  of  thunder,  crash- 
ing upon  the  sloping  front,  and  riding  their  white  steeds 
over  the  solid  flagging  to  the  lower  lagoon.  In  this 
smother  of  water  we  stood  knee-deep,  receiving  its  buf- 
fets upon  our  waists  and  the  spray  upon  our  faces,  and 
watched  for  the  fish  that  were  carried  upon  its  crests. 
With  spears  couched,  we  waited  the  flying  chance  to  ar- 
rest them  upon  the  points,  a  hazardous  game,  for  often 
they  were  powerful  creatures,  and  were  hurled  against 
us  with  threatening  impact. 

But  inspiring  as  was  this  sport  at  sunset  or  by  moon- 
light, it  was  even  more  exciting  when  we  trod  the  reef 
with  torches  of  dried  reeds  or  leaves  or  candlenuts 
threaded  upon  the  spines  of  cocoanut-leaves,  and  lanced 
the  fish  that  were  drawn  by  the  lure  of  the  lights,  or 
which  we  saw  by  their  glare  passing  over  the  reef.  The 
gleam  of  the  torches,  the  blackness  all  about,  the  master- 
ful figures  of  the  Tahitians,  the  cries  of  warning,  the 
laughter,  the  shouts  of  triumph,  and  the  melancholy 
himenes,  the  softness  and  warmth  of  the  water,  the  un- 
canny feel  of  living  things  about  one's  feet  and  body, 
the  imaginative  shudder  of  fear  at  shark  or  octopus  or 
other  terrible  brute  of  the  sea,  the  singing  journey  home 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  369 

in  the  canoes,  and  the  joyous  landing  and  counting  of 
the  catch — all  these  were  things  never  to  be  forgotten, 
pictures  to  be  unveiled  in  drabber  scenes  or  on  white 
nights  of  sleeplessness. 

The  sponges  were  oddities  hard  to  recognize  as  the 
tender  toilet  article.  Some  were  soft  and  some  were 
full  of  grit.  The  grit  was  their  skeletons,  for  every 
sponge  has  a  skeleton  except  three  or  four  very  low 
specimens,  and  some  without  personal  skeletons  import 
them  by  attraction  and  make  up  a  frame  from  foreign 
bodies.  I  examined  and  admired  them,  reasoning  that 
I  myself,  in  the  debut  of  living  creatures,  was  close  in 
appearance  to  one ;  but  my  basic  interest  in  them  was  to 
sit  on  them. 

Many  times  I  went  only  to  where  the  coral  began, 
half-way  to  the  reef.  This  was  away  from  the  path  of 
the  Vairahaha  River,  and  where  the  coral  souls  had 
manifestly  indulged  a  thousand  fancies  in  contour  and 
color.  After  the  million  years  of  their  labor  in  throw- 
ing up  the  bastion  of  the  reef,  with  all  its  architectural 
niceties,  they  had  found  in  the  repose  behind  it  oppor- 
tunities for  the  indulgence  of  their  artistry.  They  were 
the  sculptors,  painters,  and  gardeners  of  the  lagoon. 

I  brought  with  me  a  lunette,  the  diver's  aid,  a  four- 
sided  wooden  frame  fifteen  inches  each  way,  with  a  bot- 
tom of  glass  and  no  top.  I  stuck  my  head  in  the  box 
and  looked  through  the  glass,  which  I  thrust  below  the 
surface,  thus  evading  the  opaqueness  or  distortion 
caused  by  the  ripples.  One  did  not  need  this  inven- 
tion ordinarily,  for  the  water  was  as  clear  as  air  when 
undisturbed,  and  the  garden  of  the  sea  gods  was  a 
brilliant  and  moving  spectacle  below  my  drifting  canoe. 


370  MYSTIC  ISLES 

One  must  be  a  child  again  to  see  all  of  it;  the  magic 
shapes,  the  haunting  tints,  the  fairy  forms.  The  gar- 
dener who  had  directed  the  growth  of  the  aquarium  be- 
lieved in  kelpies,  undines,  and  mermaids,  and  had  made 
for  them  the  superbest  playground  conceivable  even  by 
sprites. 

There  were  trees,  bushes,  and  plants  of  yellow  and 
white  coral,  of  scarlet  corallins,  dahlias  and  roses,  cab- 
bages and  cauliflowers  simulated  perfectly,  lilies  and 
heaps  of  precious  stones.  On  flat  tables  were  starfish 
lazying  at  full  width,  strewn  shells,  and  hermit-crabs 
entering  and  leaving  their  captured  homes.  Mauve  and 
primrose,  pink  and  blue,  green  and  brown,  the  coral 
plants  nodded  in  the  glittering  light  that  filtered  through 
the  translucent  brine.  They  were  alive,  all  these  things, 
as  were  the  sponges,  with  stomachs  and  reactions,  and 
impulses  to  perpetuate  their  species  and  to  be  beautiful. 
They  had  no  relation  to  me  except  as  I  had  to  nature, 
but  they  were  my  beginnings,  my  simple  ancestors  who 
had  stayed  simple  and  unminded,  and  I  was  to  count 
those  hours  happy  when  I  communed  with  them. 

Taken  from  their  element  they  died,  but  left  their 
mold,  to  harden  in  the  air  they  could  not  breathe,  and  to 
amaze  the  less  fortunate  people  who  could  not  see  them 
in  their  own  estate.  The  seaweeds  grew  among  them, 
green  or  brown,  more  primordial  than  the  corals,  with 
less  of  organic  life,  vegetables  and  not  animals,  but 
eager,  too,  for  expression  in  their  motions,  their  in- 
crease in  size,  and  their  continuance  through  posterity. 
All  these  were  the  display  of  the  kindness  of  the  same 
spirit  who  rode  the  thunder,  who  permitted  a  million 
babes  to  starve,  who  stirred  in  men  the  madness  to  slay 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  371 

a  myriad  of  their  brothers,  and  who  fixed  the  countless 
stars  in  the  firmament  to  guide  them  in  the  darkness. 

The  hermit-crabs  drew  my  minute  attention,  and  I 
anchored  my  canoe  and  with  the  lunette  watched  them 
by  the  hour.  They  were  as  provident  and  as  handy — 
with  claws — as  the  bee  that  stores  honey.  The  hermit 
inhabits  the  vacant  shells  of  other  mollusks,  entering  one 
soon  after  birth,  sometimes  finding  them  untenanted, 
and  sometimes  killing  the  rightful  occupant,  and  chang- 
ing his  house  as  he  grows.  I  had  been  surprised  to  see 
small  and  large  shells  moving  fast  over  the  reef,  and 
on  the  beach  at  the  water's-edge ;  shells  as  big  as  my 
thumbnail  and  nearly  as  big  as  my  head.  I  seized  one, 
and  behold !  the  inmate  was  walking  on  ten  legs  with  the 
shell  on  his  back,  like  a  man  carrying  a  dog-house.  I 
attempted  to  pull  him  out  of  his  lodging,  and  he  was  so 
firmly  fastened  to  the  interior  by  hooks  on  his  belly  that 
he  held  on  until  he  was  torn  asunder.  His  abdomen  is 
soft  and  pulpy  and  without  protecting  plates,  as  have 
other  crabs,  and  he  survived  only  by  his  childhood  cus- 
tom of  stealing  a  univalve  abode,  though  he  murdered 
the  honest  tenant.  In  one  I  saw  the  large  pincher  of 
the  crab  so  drawn  back  as  to  form  a  door  to  the  shell  as 
perfect  as  the  original.  When  he  felt  growing  pains  the 
hermit-crab  unhooked  himself  from  his  ceiling  and  mi- 
grated in  search  of  a  more  commodious  dwelling. 

Interesting  as  were  these  habits  of  the  cenobite  crus- 
tacean, his  keeping  a  policeman  or  two  on  guard  on  his 
roof,  and  moving  them  to  his  successive  domiciles,  was 
more  so.  These  policemen  are  anemones,  and  I  saw 
hermit  crab-shells  with  three  or  four  on  them,  and  one 
even  in  the  mouth  of  the  shell  When  the  anchorite 


372  MYSTIC  ISLES 

was  ready  for  a  new  shell,  he  left  his  old  one  and  ex- 
amined the  new  ones  acutely.  Finding  one  to  suit  his 
expected  growth,  he  entered  it  belly  first,  and  trans- 
ferred the  anemone,  by  clawing  and  pulling  loose  its 
hold,  to  the  outside  of  his  chosen  shell.  How  skilfully 
this  was  done  may  be  judged  by  the  fact  that  I  could 
not  get  one  free  without  tearing  the  cup-like  base  which 
fastened  it.  The  anemone  assisted  in  the  operation  by 
keeping  its  tentacles  expanded,  whereas  it  withdrew 
them  if  any  foreign  object  came  near.  The  stinging 
cells  of  the  anemone  prevent  fishes  from  attacking  the 
hermit,  and  that  is  the  reason  of  his  care  for  the  parasite. 
It  is  the  commensalism  of  the  struggle  for  existence, 
learned  not  by  the  individual  crab,  but  by  his  race. 
Some  crabs  wield  an  anemone  firmly  grasped  in  each 
claw,  the  stinging  nematocysts  of  the  parasite  warding 
off  the  devilish  octopus,  and  the  anemone  having  a  share 
of  the  crab's  meals  and  the  pleasure  of  vicarious  trans- 
portation. The  anemone  at  the  mouth  of  the  shell 
keeps  guard  at  the  weakest  spot  of  the  hermit's  armor. 

These  sea-anemones  themselves  are  mysterious  evi- 
dences of  the  gradual  advance  of  organisms  from  the 
slime  to  the  poem.  They  are  animals,  and  attach  them- 
selves by  a  muscular  base  to  the  rocks  or  shells,  or  are 
as  free-swimming  as  perch.  I  saw  them  two  feet  in  di- 
ameter, seeming  all  vegetable,  some  like  chrysanthe- 
mums and  some  resembling  embroidered  pin-cushions. 
They  were  of  many  colors,  and  are  of  the  coral  family. 

In  this  wonderful  sea  garden,  where  lobsters,  crabs, 
sea-urchins,  turbos,  starfish,  and  hundreds  of  other  sen- 
tient beings  lived,  I  saw  a  thousand  true  scaled  fish,  most 
of  them  highly  colored,  and  many  so  curiously  marked, 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  878 

fashioned,  and  equipped  with  eccentric  members  that  I 
was  startled  into  biblical  phrases.  In  the  market  they 
were  strange  enough,  dead  and  on  the  marble  slabs,  or 
in  green  leaves,  but  in  the  lagoon  they  were  a  kaleido- 
scope of  complexions  and  shapes.  They  were  the  lovely 
elves  to  complement  the  fantastic  shellfish,  yellow, 
striped  with  violet ;  bright  turquoise,  with  a  gold  collar ; 
gold,  with  broad  bands  of  black  terminating  in  wing- 
like  fins;  scarlet,  with  cobalt  polka-dots;  silver,  with  a 
rosy  flush ;  glossy  green,  dazzling  crimson,  black  velvet, 
solid  red. 

They  darted  and  flashed  in  and  out  of  the  caves  in  the 
coral,  caressed  the  sea-anemones,  idled  about  the  shells, 
avoided  by  dexterous  twistings  and  turnings  a  thousand 
collisions,  and  continued  ever  the  primary  endeavor,  the 
search  for  those  particular  bits  of  food  their  appetites 
craved. 

The  effect  upon  me  of  all  this  splendor  and  grace  of 
water  life,  as  I  bent  over  the  surface  of  the  lagoon  or 
walked  with  lunette  among  the  beds  of  coral,  was, 
after  the  oft-repeated  periods  of  bewilderment  at  the 
gorgeousness  and  whimsicality  of  the  universe,  a  deep 
rejoicing  for  its  prodigality  of  design  and  purpose,  and 
a  merry  sorrow  for  those  who  would  inflict  dogma  and 
orthodoxy  on  a  practical  and  heterodox  world.  I 
leaned  on  the  side  of  the  canoe  or  on  my  spears  and 
laughed  at  the  fools  of  cities,  and  at  myself,  who  had 
been  a  fool  among  them  for  most  of  my  life.  Just  how 
this  train  of  reasoning  ran  I  cannot  say,  but  it  moved 
inexorably  at  the  contemplation  of  the  sublime  radiancy 
of  the  vivarium  of  the  Mataiea  lagoon.  It  always  ap- 
peared a  symbol  of  the  cosmic  energy  which  poured  the 


374  MYSTIC  ISLES 

bounty  of  rain  upon  the  sea  as  upon  the  thirsty  earth, 
and  which  is  beyond  good  and  evil  as  we  reckon  them. 

When  I  became  myself  the  hunter  for  fish,  and  stood 
upon  the  hummocks  of  coral  in  water  up  to  my  waist  or 
neck,  lunette  in  one  hand  and  spears  in  another,  I  saw 
a  different  aspect  of  the  garden.  I,  naked  among  the 
coral  and  the  plants,  must  have  looked  to  them  like  a 
frightful  demon,  white  and  without  scales,  a  horrible 
devil-fish,  my  arms  and  legs  glabrous  tentacles,  and  the 
lunette  and  spears  adding  to  my  hideousness  and  foul 
menace.  I  know  that  was  the  impression  I  made  on  the 
rainbow-fish,  for  they  fled  within  the  caves,  and  only 
by  peeping  in  through  the  glass  could  I  see  them  to 
drive  the  spear  into  them.  These  slender  spears  were  a 
dozen  feet  of  light,  tough  wood,  two  of  them  with  single 
iron  points  two  feet  long,  and  a  third  fitted  with  ten 
fine-pointed  darning-needles.  For  small  fish  I  used  the 
latter,  and  in  thrusting  into  a  school  was  pretty  sure  to 
impale  one  or  two. 

I  tied  the  rope  of  pandanus-leaves  about  my  shoulder, 
and  pulled  the  canoe  along  with  me  as  a  creel,  tossing  the 
fish  into  it  as  I  took  them.  The  first  seven  were  often 
of  different  kinds,  and  I  did  not  despise  the  yellow  and 
black  eels,  the  lobsters,  the  maof  or  the  oysters  and 
clams. 

I  would  rest  my  spears  in  the  canoe,  and  meander 
slowly  and  meditatively  over  the  coral  terraces,  repeat- 
ing verses : 

We  wandered  where  the  dreamy  palm 
Murmured  above  the  sleepy  wave; 
And  through  the  waters  clear  and  calm 
Looked  down  into  the  coral  cave 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  375 

Whose  echoes  never  had  been  stirred 
By  breath  of  man  or  song  of  bird. 

When  sky  and  wind  were  propitious,  and  other  signs 
familiar  to  the  Maori  indicated  that  fish  were  plentiful 
in  the  lagoon,  the  whole  village  dragged  the  net.  This 
belonged  to  the  chief,  who  for  his  ownership  received  a 
percentage  of  the  catch.  The  net  was  a  hundred  and 
fifty  feet  long,  and  was  carried  out  by  a  dozen  canoes  or 
by  half  a  hundred  or  more  men  and  women,  who  let  it 
sink  to  the  bottom  when  up  to  their  necks  in  water. 
They  then  approached  the  shore  with  the  net  in  a  half- 
circle,  carrying  it  over  the  coral  heaps,  and  artfully  driv- 
ing into  it  all  the  fish  they  encountered.  In  shallow 
water  others  waited  with  little  baskets,  and,  scooping  up 
the  fish  from  the  net,  emptied  them  into  larger  baskets 
slung  from  their  waists.  These  fish  were  not  very  big, 
but  when  larger  ones  were  netted,  marksmen  with  spears 
waited  in  the  shallows  to  kill  any  that  leaped  from  the 
seine.  If  the  haul  was  bigger  than  the  needs  of  the 
village,  the  overplus  was  sent  to  the  market  in  Papeete, 
or  kept  in  huge  anchored,  floating  baskets  of  wicker. 
These  fishermen  had  been  heart  and  soul  in  the  tahatai 
oneone,  the  fish  strike,  and  when  we  had  poor  luck,  often 
the  best  spearsman  led  the  clan  in  the  air  taught  them 
by  the  leader  whom  they  remembered  with  pride  and 
affection: 
Hayrahrooyah  !  I  'm  a  boom !  Hayrahrooyah !  Boomagay ! 

They  associated  the  air  and  words  with  the  fish,  and 
deep  down  in  their  primitive  hearts  thought  it  an  in- 
cantation, such  as  their  tahutahu,  the  sorcerers  of  the 
island,  spoke  of  old. 


376  MYSTIC  ISLES 

"Tellee  haapao  maitai!  Kelly  was  a  wise  man!"  they 
would  lament. 

Every  one  used  a  fine  casting-net  when  fishing  alone 
along  the  shores.  The  net  was  weighted,  and  was 
thrown  over  schools  of  small  fish  so  dexterously  that 
hundreds  were  snared  in  one  fling.  The  tiniest  fish 
were  the  size  of  matches.  When  cooked  with  a  paste, 
they  were  as  dainty  as  whitebait  served  at  Greenwich  to 
a  London  gourmet,  and  sung  by  Shakespere.  The  nets 
were  plaited  of  the  fibers  of  the  hibiscus,  banyan,  or 
pandanus-bark,  and  when  a  mighty  catch  was  expected, 
one  of  small  mesh  was  laid  inside  a  net  of  stronger  and 
coarser  make,  to  intercept  any  large  fish  that  might 
break  through  the  first  line  of  offense.  The  weights 
were  stones  wrapped  in  cocoanut-fiber,  and  the  floats 
were  of  the  buoyant  hibiscus-wood.  In  front  of  the 
grounds  of  the  chefferie  there  hung  on  the  trees  a  long 
line  of  nets  drying  in  the  breeze. 

Before  a  feast,  if  there  were  not  conditions  auspicious 
for  a  tuu  i  te  upea  toro,  a  dragging  of  the  seine,  the 
village  was  occupied  during  the  day  or  the  wind  was 
unfavorable,  we  went  out  at  night  after  the  trades  had 
died  down,  and  in  a  dozen  or  twenty  canoes  we  speared 
them  by  torchlight.  One  was  at  the  paddle,  and  the 
other  at  the  prow,  with  uplifted  flambeau,  searching  the 
waters  for  the  fleeing  shadows  beneath,  and  launching 
the  dart  at  the  exact  instant  of  proximity.  The  con- 
gregation of  lights,  the  lapping  of  the  waves,  and  per- 
haps the  very  gathering  of  humans  excited  the  fish. 
They  leaped  and  splashed,  and  unaware  of  their  be- 
trayal of  their  presence  to  slayers,  informed  our  eyes 
and  ears  of  their  whereabouts.  I  could  not  compete 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  377 

with  the  Tahitians  with  the  spears,  and  held  a  paddle, 
and  that  slight  occupation  gave  me  time  and  thought 
for  the  scene.  The  torches  threw  a  lurid  glare  upon 
the  exaggerated,  semi-nude  figures  of  the  giant  bronzes 
on  the  beaks  of  the  pirogues,  their  arms  raised  in  the 
poise  of  the  weapon,  each  outlined  against  the  darkness 
of  the  night,  glorious  avatars  yet  of  their  race  that  had 
been  so  mighty  and  was  so  soon  to  pass  from  the  wave. 

"Maru,"  said  the  chief,  when  we  sat  on  the  mats  at 
late  supper  after  a  return  from  the  lagoon,  "it  is  a  pity 
you  were  not  here  when  the  Tahitians  had  their  'ar'ia 
and  pahi,  our  large  canoes  for  navigating  on  the  moana 
faa  aro,  the  landless  sea.  The  'ar'ia  was  a  double  canoe, 
each  seventy  feet  long,  high  in  the  stern,  and  lashed  to- 
gether, outrigger  to  outrigger.  A  stout,  broad  plat- 
form was  held  firm  between  the  canoes  with  many  lash- 
ings of  sennit,  a  strong,  but  yielding,  framework  on 
which  was  a  small  house  of  straw  where  the  crew  lived. 
We  had  no  nails,  but  we  used  wooden  pegs  and  thou- 
sands of  cocoanut-fiber  ropes,  so  that  everything,  aloft 
and  alow,  was  taut,  but  giving  in  the  toss  of  the  sea. 

"The  pahi  was  eighty  feet  long,  broad  in  the  middle, 
very  carefully  and  neatly  planked  over  inside,  forming 
a  rude  bulkhead  or  inner  casing,  and  had  a  lofty  carved 
stem  rising  into  one  or  two  posts,  terminating  in  a  hu- 
man form.  It  was  in  these  vessels  that  we  made  the 
long  journeys  from  island  to  island,  the  migrations  and 
the  descents  upon  other  Polynesian  peoples  in  war. 
Both  the  'ar'ia  and  the  pahi  were  propelled  by  a  huge 
'i'e,  or  mat  sail  of  pandanus-leaves  shaped  like  a  leg  of 
a  fat  hog.  In  modern  times  these  great  canoes  were 
buUt  in  Bora-Bora,  the  island  the  Hawaiians  say  they 


378  MYSTIC  ISLES 

came  from,  and  the  name  of  which  means  'Land  of  the 
Big  House  Canoes/  With  a  good  wind  we  could  sail  a 
hundred  and  twenty  miles  a  day  in  those  vessels.  We 
would  attend  the  faa-Rua,  which  we  now  call  the 
ha'a-Piti,  the  wind  that  blows  both  ways,  for  we  waited 
for  the  northeast  or  southwest  trade-winds  according  to 
the  direction  we  made  for." 

The  chief  lifted  his  glass  of  wine,  and  chanted: 

"Aue  mouna,  mouna  o  H avail! 
Havaii  tupu  ai  te  ahi  veavea!" 

"Hail!  mighty  mountains,  mountains  of  Havaii! 
Havaii  where  the  red,  flaming  fire  shoots  up  high !" 

Brooke  had  been  to  Lake  Vaihiria,  and  suggested 
that  I  go.  The  excursion  had  been  long  in  my  mind, 
for  every  time  an  eel  was  caught  or  served  some  one 
exclaimed,  "Aue!  You  should  see  the  eels  in  Vaihiria. 
But,  be  careful!" 

The  warning  referred  to  the  dangers  of  the  climb, 
but  also  to  a  mysterious  menace  of  tupapaus,  or  ghosts. 
I  had  seen  a  canoe  with  the  head  of  an  eel  carved  in 
wood,  and  had  heard  often  a  hesitant  reference  to  a 
legend  of  metempsychosis,  of  a  human  and  eel  transmi- 
gration. The  chief,  after  much  persuasion,  said  that 
the  clans  of  Mataiea  had  always  believed  they  were  de- 
scended directly  from  eels ;  that  an  eel  of  Lake  Vaihiria 
had  been  the  progenitor  of  all  the  people  of  the  valley. 
A  vahine  of  another  clan  had  been  overcome  by  the  eel's 
sorcery,  as  Mother  Eve  by  the  serpent,  which  doubtless 
was  an  eel. 

As  the  eel  and  the  water-snakes  are  the  only  serpen- 
tine animals  in  Tahiti,  his  reasoning  was  sound.  The 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  379 

lake  lies  high  in  the  mountains,  at  the  very  summit  of 
the  valley  of  Mataiea,  and  overlooks  the  Great  Valley 
of  Papenoo,  owned  by  Count  Polonsky,  the  cultivated 
Slav-Frenchman. 

Tiura,  the  chief's  oldest  adopted  son,  arranged  for 
the  journey,  and  led  the  four  of  us  who  made  it.  One 
was  an  Australian,  a  doctor  of  the  bush  country  of 
Queensland,  in  his  thirties,  very  tall,  and  strong,  though 
thin.  He  was  a  guest  of  the  chief,  and  had  walked  en- 
tirely around  Tahiti,  barefooted,  as  had  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  to  the  consternation  of  the 
conservative  English  residents  of  Tahiti,  who  wanted 
them  to  live  in  Papeete  and  hold  teas.  Two  pleasant 
native  youths  went  with  us  to  carry  our  necessities. 

One  cannot  make  the  trip  in  the  wet  season,  usually, 
but  we  had  had  a  period  of  quite  dry  weather,  and  were 
nearing  the  end  of  the  rainy  period.  The  beginning  of 
the  Valley  of  Vaihiria,  the  next  to  that  of  Mataiea,  was 
reached  within  an  hour  by  the  crooked  road  that  leaves 
the  beach.  The  valley  was  very  fertile,  and  its  pic- 
turesqueness  a  foretaste  of  the  heights.  The  brook  that 
ran  through  it  murmured  that  it,  too,  climbed  to  the 
mountains,  and  would  be  our  music  on  the  way.  The 
ascent  was  difficult  and  wearisome.  We  walked 
through  long  grass,  over  great  rocks,  and  pulled  our- 
selves around  huge  trees.  The  birds,  so  rare  near  the 
sea-shore,  sang  to  us,  and  we  saw  many  nests  of  fine 
moss.  The  scenery  was  different  from  that  of  the  Val- 
ley of  Fautaua,  which  I  had  climbed  with  Fragrance  of 
the  Jasmine,  more  rugged,  and  less  captivating,  yet 
beautiful  and  inspiring.  The  enormous  blocks  of  basalt 
often  poised  upon  a  point  alarmed  us,  and  Tiura  said 


380  MYSTIC  ISLES 

that  many  times  they  had  crashed  down  into  the  abyss. 
We  saw  a  score  of  white  cascades.     It  seemed: 

A  land  of  streams.     Some  like  a  downward  smoke, 
Slow-dropping  veils  of  thinnest  lawn,  did  go ; 
And  some  through  wavering  lights  and  shadows  broke, 
Rolling  a  slumbrous  sheet  of  foam  below. 

We  arrived  at  a  plateau  after  seven  hours  of  hard 
toil,  almost  all  the  time  pursuing  a  rocky  path:  it  was 
the  crown  of  the  mountain  and  the  borders  of  the  lake. 
Though  we  had  surmounted  only  thirteen  hundred  feet 
of  vertically,  we  had  come  by  such  steeps  that  we  could 
not  wait  an  instant  before  throwing  off  our  light  gar- 
ments and  plunging  into  the  water.  The  lake  occupied 
an  extinct  crater,  surrounded  by  four  mountains  un- 
equally raised  up — Tetufera,  Urufaa,  Purahu,  and 
Terouotupo.  It  is  half  a  mile  long  and  a  third  wide,  of 
curious  shape,  the  banks  making  it  appear  in  the  dusk 
like  a  babe  in  swaddling-clothes  with  its  arms  outside  the 
band.  A  great  natural  reservoir,  fed  by  many  subter- 
ranean springs,  it  gives  birth  to  many  others  at  the  feet 
of  the  mountains,  in  Mataiea  and  Papeari. 

After  a  repast,  it  being  already  late,  we  built  a  house 
to  sleep  in  away  from  the  dews  of  the  heights,  and  Tiura 
recalled  that  the  first  Pomare  took  his  name  from  a  time 
when  he  had  spent  the  night  here  and  coughed  from  the 
exposure.  His  followers  had  spoken  of  the  po  mare, 
meaning  literally,  night  cough,  and  the  euphony  pleased 
the  king  so  that  he  adopted  the  name  and  bequeathed  it 
to  four  successors.  All  these  Polynesians  took  their 
names  at  birth  or  later  from  incidents  in  their  own  or 
others'  lives,  as  my  own  chief's — "Deal  Coffin,"  from  a 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  381 

relative  being  buried  in  a  sailor's  chest;  "Press  Me"  be- 
cause the  chief  so  named  had  heard  these  as  the  last 
word  uttered  by  a  dying  grandchild,  and  Dim  Sight 
because  his  grandfather  had  weak  eyes. 

Taata  Mata,  the  name  of  a  charming  Tahitian  wo- 
man I  knew,  signifies  "Man's  Eye,"  her  own  large  eyes, 
perhaps,  explaining  the  name,  and  Mauu,  the  name 
borne  by  a  Tahitian  man  of  good  family  in  Papeete, 
"Moist."     In  all  Polynesia  one  found  picture  names 
for  people,  as  among  the  American  Indians,  and  as 
among  all  nations,  though  with  Europeans  the  mean- 
ings are  forgotten.     Moses  means  "Pulled  out  of  the 
Water,"  or  "Water  Baby."     Some  of  our  names  of 
people  and  places  have  ridiculous  import  in  Tahiti.     I 
remember  Lovaina  laughed  immoderately,  and  called 
all  the  maids  to  view  a  line  in  the  Tiare  Hotel  register 
in  which  a  man  had  put  himself  down  from  "Omaha." 
After  we  had  eaten,  we  sat  smoking  in  the  darkness, 
I  feeling  very  close  to  the  blue  field  of  stars.     In  the 
tropics  the  mountains,  even  so  low  as  these,  are  impres- 
sive of  a  vast  harmony  of  nature  and  of  kinship  with  the 
force  that  rumpled  them  with  its  mighty  hand.     They 
have  always  inspired  great  thoughts.     Moses  framed 
in  the  mountains  the  ten  taboos  of  Israel,  which  we 
hold  as  sacred  as  did  the  chosen  people.     Jesus  made 
the  mountains  the  seat  of  his  most  important  acts,  and 
was  there  transfigured  in  glory. 

We  had  been  pointed  out  by  Tiura  a  great  crack  in 
the  precipice,  called  Apoo  Taria,  the  "Hole  of  the 
Ears."  In  the  bloody  struggles  of  the  ancient  tribes 
here  the  conquerors  cut  off  the  ears  of  their  victims — 
some  say  their  captives — and  threw  them  in  this  hole. 


382  MYSTIC  ISLES 

"Because  of  those  ears,"  said  Tiura,  "all  the  eels  in 
this  lake  have  very  large  ears,  and  it  is  so  because  the 
father  of  all  the  Mataiea  folk  was  an  eel.  We  shall  see 
the  eels  to-morrow,  but  I  must  tell  you  of  the  chief  of 
the  district  of  Arue,  near  Papeete,  about  which 
M.  Tourjee,  the  American,  wrote  the  himene.  The 
chief  was  married  to  a  strong  woman  of  this  district, 
and  in  those  days  there  were  so  many  Tahitians  that  the 
mountains  as  well  as  the  valleys  were  filled  with  them. 
He  had  a  pet  puhi,  an  eel  named  Faaraianuu.  The  eel 
had  his  home  in  a  spring  in  the  Arue  district.  The 
spring  is  there  to  this  day." 

ffOia  ia!  It  is  true!"  I  interjected.  "I  have  seen  it." 
"One  day,"  went  on  Tiura,  "the  chief  remarked  to  his 
vahine  that  he  was  starting  up  the  mountain  to  see  her 
grandparents.  She  wanted  to  go,  too,  but  he  said  that 
he  would  just  hurry  along,  and  be  back  in  a  day  or  two. 
Against  her  will  he  went  alone.  He  did  come  back  in 
a  day  or  two,  and  to  her  questions  replied  that  he  had 
had  a  delightful  visit  to  her  tupuna.  After  that  he  got 
the  pen,  the  habit,  of  departing  for  the  mountains  and 
remaining  for  hours  daily.  The  chief's  vahine  became 
anoenoe  (curious)  to  see  what  was  his  real  reason  for 
making  these  journeys  every  day.  So  she  followed  him 
secretly.  She  came  to  the  mountain,  where  she  saw  him 
stop  by  an  umu,  a  native  oven  he  had  evidently  built 
before.  He  took  out  a  bamboo,  the  kind  in  which  we 
cooked  small  pieces  of  meat,  and  she  saw  him  draw  out 
a  piece  of  meat  and  heard  him  say  fMaitcd!  Good!'  as 
he  ate  it.  She  watched  him  closely,  and  was  anxious  to 
know  what  meat  he  had  cooked,  for  he  had  said  nothing 
about  it. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  383 

"When  he  had  left,  she  rushed  to  the  oven,  opened  the 
bamboo,  and  saw  on  pieces  of  meat  the  special  tattoo- 
marks  of  the  thighs  of  her  grandmother  and  grand- 
father. Auel  She  was  riri.  She  fell  to  the  earth  and 
wept,  and  then  she  was  angry.  She  made  up  her  mind 
to  get  even  with  her  false  tane,  and  to  hurt  him  the 
worst  way  possible.  She  hurried  to  his  spring  by  their 
home  in  Arue,  and  caught  his  pet  eel,  Faaraianuu, 
who  was  sunning  himself  on  the  surface.  She  slashed 
him  with  her  knife  of  pearl  shell,  and  baked  him  in  an 
nmii.  She  ate  his  tail  at  once  and  put  the  remainder  of 
the  eel  in  a  calabash.  Then  she  left,  with  the  ipu  in  her 
hand,  for  Lake  Vaihiria." 

Tiura  halted  his  tale  a  minute  to  point  out  the  con- 
stellation of  the  Scorpion,  and  to  say,  "Those  stars  are 
Pipiri  Ma,  the  children,  who  lived  at  Mataiea  long  ago. 
That  is  a  strange  story  of  their  leaving  their  parents' 
house  for  the  sky!" 

"Auel  Tiura,"  said  I,  "the  stars  are  fixed,  but  there 
was  the  vahine  with  all  but  the  tail  of  Faaraianuu  in  her 
ipu,  walking  toward  this  very  spot.  What  became  of 
her?" 

The  son  of  Tetuanui  smiled,  and  continued: 

"On  her  way  she  stopped  to  see  the  sorcerer,  Tahu- 
Tahu  and  his  vahine.  They  were  friends.  After  a 
paraparau,  the  usual  gossip  of  women,  they  asked  her 
what  she  had  in  her  calabash,  and  she  replied,  'Play- 
things.' Then  they  told  her  her  journey  would  be  un- 
successful, but  she  kept  on  to  this  lake  and  put  the  re- 
mains of  the  eel  in  the  water,  right  here  where  we  are. 
But  the  eel  would  not  stay  in  the  lake,  and  though  time 
and  again  she  threw  him  in,  he  always  came  out.  Fi- 


384  MYSTIC  ISLES 

nally  she  put  him  back  in  her  ipu  and  returned  to  the 
house  of  Tahu-Tahu.  She  told  her  misfortune,  and 
Tahu-Tahu  made  passes  and  thrashed  about  with  the 
sacred  fo'-leaves,  and  commanded  her  to  put  Faaraianuu 
in  the  lake  again.  This  she  did,  and  he  stayed,  but  even 
now,  if  you  put  a  cocoanut  in  this  lake  at  this  spot,  it 
will  come  out  at  the  spring  in  Arue.  The  eel  still  has 
power  over  that  spring." 

Tiura  spoke  in  Tahitian  and  French,  and  I  handed  on 
his  narrative. 

"The  eel  in  Tahiti,  from  what  I  hear,  has  seen  better 
days,"  commented  the  Queensland  doctor.  "All  over 
the  world  the  primitive  people  endowed  this  humble 
form  of  animal — the  serpentine — with  a  cunning  and 
supernatural  power  surpassing  that  of  the  four-footed 
creatures.  I  think  it  was  because  in  the  cradle  of  the 
human  family  there  were  so  many  hurts  from  the  bites 
of  snakes  and  sea-eels — they  could  n't  guard  against 
them — that  man  salved  his  wounds  by  crediting  his 
enemy  with  devilish  qualities.  That 's  the  probable 
origin  of  the  garden  of  Eden  myth." 

Again  Tiura  spoke  of  the  Scorpion  in  the  sky,  and  I 
knew  he  desired  to  talk  of  Pipiri  Ma.  The  other  Tahi- 
tians  were  already  under  the  roof  on  their  backs,  upon 
the  soft  bed  of  dried  leaves  gathered  by  them  for  all  of 
us,  but  the  long,  lean  physician  listened  with  unabated 
interest.  He  had  run  away  for  a  change  from  the  des- 
ert-like interior  of  his  vast  island,  where  he  treated  the 
ills  of  a  large  territory  of  sheep-herders,  and  to  be  on 
this  mountain  under  such  a  benignant  canopy,  and  to 
hear  the  folk-lore  of  the  most  fascinating  race  on  earth, 
was  to  him  worth  foregoing  sleep  all  night. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  385 

Tiura  assumed  a  serious  pose  for  the  divulgement  of 
secret  lore.  His  language  became  grandiose,  as  if  he 
repeated  verbatim  a  rune  of  his  ancestors: 

"We  Maoris  lived  at  that  time  in  the  great  peace  of 
our  long,  quiet  years.  No  outside  influence,  no  evil 
wind,  troubled  our  dreams.  The  men  and  women  were 
liinuliimi,  of  high  souls.  At  the  head  of  the  valley,  in 
a  grove  of  breadfruit,  lived  Taua  a  Tiaroroa,  his  valiine 
Rehua,  and  their  two  children,  whose  bodies  were  as 
round  as  the  breadfuit,  and  whose  eyes  were  like  the 
black  borders  of  the  pearl-shells  of  the  Conquered  atolls. 
They  were  named  Pipiri  and  Rehua  iti,  but  were  known 
as  Pipiri  Ma,  the  inseparables.  One  night  when  the 
moon,  Avae,  was  at  the  height  of  its  brilliancy,  Taua 
and  Rehua  trod  the  green  path  to  the  sea.  They  lifted 
their  canoe  from  its  couch  upon  the  grass,  and  with 
lighted  torch  of  cocoanut-leaves  glided  toward  the  cen- 
ter of  the  lagoon. 

"The  woman  stood  motionless  at  the  prow,  and  from 
her  right  hand  issued  the  flames  of  their  torch  with  a 
hissing  sound — the  flames  which  fell  later  in  smoky 
clouds  along  the  shore.  A  multitude  of  fish  of  strange 
form,  fascinated  by  the  blinding  light,  swam  curiously 
about  the  canoe  like  butterflies.  Taua  stopped  pad- 
pling,  and  directed  his  twelve-pronged  harpoon  toward 
the  biggest  fish.  With  a  quick  and  powerful  stroke  the 
heavy  harpoon  shot  like  an  arow  from  his  hand  and 
pierced  the  flashing  scales.  Soon  the  baskets  of  purau- 
fiber  were  filled,  and  they  took  back  the  canoe  to  its 
resting-place,  and  returned  to  their  house,  again  treading 
the  emerald  trail  which  shone  bright  under  the  flooding 
moon.  On  the  red-hot  stones  of  the  umu  the  fish  grew 


386  MYSTIC  ISLES 

golden,  and  sent  forth  a  sweet  odor  which  exceeded  in 
deliciousness  even  the  smell  of  monoi,  the  ointment  of 
the  oil  of  the  cocoanut  and  crushed  blossoms.  Pipiri 
Ma  rolled  upon  their  soft  mats,  and  their  eyes  opened 
with  thoughts  of  a  bountiful  meal.  They  awaited  with 
hearts  of  joy  the  moment  when  their  mother  would 
come  to  take  them  to  the  cook-house,  the  fare  umu. 

"The  parents  did  not  come  to  them.  The  minutes 
passed  slowly  in  the  silence,  counted  by  beats  of  their 
hearts.  Yet  their  mother  was  not  far  away.  They 
heard  the  noise  of  the  dried  pu  ran  -leaves  as  they  were 
placed  on  the  grass.  They  distinguished  the  sound  of 
the  breadfruit  as  they  rolled  dully  upon  the  large  leaves, 
and  then  the  silvery  sound  of  cups  filled  with  pape  miti 
and  the  miti  n-oanoa  from  which  a  pleasant  aroma  arose. 
They  heard  also  the  freeing  of  the  cocoanuts  from  their 
hairy  covering  to  release  their  limpid  nectar.  On  their 
mats  the  children  became  restless  and  began  to  cry. 
Their  eyes  filled  with  bitter  tears,  and  their  throats 
choked  with  painful  sobs. 

"  'All  is  ready,'  said  Rehua,  gladly,  to  her  husband, 
'but  before  we  eat,  go  and  wake  our  little  ones  so  dear  to 
us.' 

"Taua  was  afraid  to  break  the  sweet  sleep  of  the 
babies.  He  hesitated  and  said: 

"  'No,  do  not  let  us  wake  them.  They  sleep  so 
soundly  now.' 

"Pipiri  Ma  heard  these  touching  words  of  their  father. 
Why  was  he  afraid  to  wake  them  to-night  when  always 
they  ate  the  fish  with  their  parents — the  fish  just  from 
the  sea  and  golden  from  the  umu?  Had  the  love  of 
their  father  been  so  soon  lost  to  them,  as  under  the  foul 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  387 

breath  of  a  demon  that  may  have  wandered  about  their 
home? 

"Taua  eats  and  enjoys  his  meal,  but  Rehua  is  dis- 
tracted. A  cloud  gathers  on  her  brow,  and  her  eyes, 
full  of  sadness,  are  always  toward  the  house  where  the 
children  are  sleeping.  The  meal  finished,  she,  with 
her  husband,  hurry  to  the  mats  on  which  the  children 
slept,  but  the  little  ones  had  heard  the  noise  of  their  feet 
upon  the  dewy  leaves. 

r  fHaere  atu!  Let  us  go !'  said  the  brother  to  the 
sister.  The  door  is  closed,  and  with  his  slender  arms  he 
parts  the  light  bamboo  palings  which  surround  the 
house,  and  both  flee  through  the  opening. 

"A  long  time  they  wandered.  They  followed  the 
reaches  of  the  valley.  They  dipped  their  bruised  feet 
in  the  amorous  river  that  sang  as  it  crept  toward  the 
ocean.  They  broke  through  the  twisted  brush  which 
was  shadowed  by  the  giant  leaves,  and  while  they  so 
hurried  they  heard  often  the  words  of  their  parents, 
which  the  echoes  of  the  valley  brought  to  their  ears: 

'  'Come  back!  Come  back  to  us,  Pipiri  Ma!  Ma! 
Haere  mai,  Tiaere  mai,  Pipiri  Ma!' 

"And  they  called  back  from  the  depths  of  their 
bosoms,  'No,  no;  we  will  never  come  back.  The  torch- 
light fishing  will  again  yield  the  children  nothing.' 

"They  hid  themselves  on  the  highest  mountains  which 
caress  the  sky  with  their  misty  locks.  They  climbed 
with  great  difficulty  the  lower  hills  from  which  they 
looked  down  on  the  houses  as  small  as  a  sailing  canoe 
on  the  horizon.  They  came  upon  a  dark  cave  where  the 
tupapaus  made  their  terrible  noises,  and  in  this  cavern 
dwe.lt  a  tdhu,  a  sorcerer.  They  were  afraid,  but  the 


388  MYSTIC  ISLES 

sorcerer  was  kind,  and  when  he  awoke,  spoke  so  softly 
to  them  they  thought  they  heard  the  sough  of  the  hupe, 
the  wind  of  the  night,  out  of  the  valley  below  them. 

"When  he  spoke,  the  spirit  with  whom  the  tahu  was 
familiar  let  down  a  cloud  and  from  it  fell  a  fringe  of 
varied  hues.  Pipiri  Ma  seized  the  threads  that  looked 
the  most  seducing,  threads  of  gold  and  rose,  and  upon 
these  they  climbed  to  the  skies.  Their  parents  who  saw 
them  as  they  ascended,  begged  them,  'Pipiri  Ma,  come 
back !  Oh,  come  back  to  us !'  but  the  babes  were  already 
high  in  the  heavens,  higher  than  Orohena,  the  loftiest 
mountain,  and  their  voices  came  almost  from  under  the 
sun:  'No,  we  will  never  return.  The  fishing  with  the 
torches  might  be  bad  again.  It  might  not  be  good  for 
the  children.' 

"Taua  and  Rehua  went  back  to  their  hut  in  tears. 
Whenever  the  torchlight  fishing  was  bountiful,  and  the 
fish  were  glowing  on  the  hot  stones  of  the  umu,  Rehua 
lifted  sorrowful  eyes  toward  the  skies,  and  vainly  sup- 
plicated, 'Pipiri  Ma,  return  to  us !'  and  Taua  answered, 
shaking  his  head  with  a  doleful  and  unbelieving  nod, 
*  Alas !  it  is  over.  Pipiri  Ma  will  not  come  back,  for  one 
day  the  torchlight  fishing  was  bad  for  the  children.' ' 

Tiura  finished  with  a  finger  pointing  to  Antares,  of 
the  Scorpion  constellation. 

"That,"  he  concluded,  "is  the  cloud  which  was  itself 
transformed." 

The  doctor  shook  out  his  pipe  as  we  entered  the  flimsy 
hut. 

"Sounds  like  it  was  written  by  a  child  who  wanted  a 
continuous  supply  of  sweets,  but  these  people  are  so 
crazy  on  children  that  their  legends  point  a  moral  to  par- 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  389 

ents  and  never  to  the  kiddies.     They  reverse  'Honor  thy 
father  and  mother.' ' 

In  the  morning  the  Valley  of  Vaihiria  unrolled  under 
the  rays  of  the  sun  like  a  spreading  green  carpet,  and 
the  sea  in  the  distance,  a  mirror,  sent  back  the  darts  of 
the  beams.  After  breakfast  we  built  a  raft  of  banana- 
trunks,  which  we  tied  with  lianas,  and  on  it  we  floated 
about  to  observe  the  big-eared  eels.  Except  by  the 
shore  the  natives  warned  us  against  swimming  for  fear 
of  these  monsters,  but  we  were  not  disturbed.  We 
looked  into  the  dismal  pit,  Apo  Taria,  and  tumbled 
rocks  down  it. 

"It  has  no  bottom,"  said  Tiura.  "We  have  sounded  it 
with  our  longest  ropes." 

The  sun  was  now  climbing  high,  and  we  began  the  de- 
scent, moving  at  a  fast  pace,  leaping,  slipping  and  slid- 
ing, with  the  use  of  the  rope,  and  arriving  at  the 
Chefferie  a  little  after  noon. 

The  long  draft  of  a  cocoanut,  a  full  quart  of  delicious, 
cooling  refreshment,  and  we  were  ready  for  the  oysters 
and  the  fish  and  faro. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

The  Arioi,  minstrels  of  the  tropics — Lovaina  tells  of  the  infanticide- 
Theories  of  depopulation — Methods  of  the  Arioi — Destroyed  by  mis- 
sionaries. 

LOVAINA  came  out  to  Mataiea  with  the  news 
and  gossip  of  the  capital.  A  wretched  tragedy 
had  shocked  the  community.  Pepe,  the  woman 
of  Tuatini,  had  buried  her  new-born  infant  alive  in  the 
garden  of  the  house  opposite  the  Tiare  Hotel.  Lovaina 
was  full  of  the  horror  of  it,  but  with  a  just  appreciation 
of  the  crime  as  a  happening  worth  telling.  The  chef- 
ferie  was  filled  with  aues. 

ffAue!'J  cried  Haamoura,  the  chief's  wife. 

"Aue!"  said  the  chief,  and  Rupert  Brooke,  with  whom 
I  had  been  swimming. 

"Aue!"  exclaimed  O'Laughlin  Considine,  the  Irish 
poet  of  New  Zealand,  stout,  bearded,  crowned  with  a 
chaplet  of  sweet  gardenias,  and  quoting  verses  in  Maori, 
Gaelic,  and  English. 

There  were  laments  in  Tahitian  by  all  about,  sorrow 
that  the  mother  had  so  little  loved  her  babe,  that  she  had 
not  brought  it  to  Mataiea,  where  Tetuanui  and 
Haamoura  or  any  of  us  would  have  adopted  it.  And 
Lovaina  said,  in  English  for  Considine,  whom  she  had 
brought  to  Mataiea,  and  for  Brooke : 

"She  had  five  children  by  that  Tuatini.  He  is  cus- 
tom-officer at  Makatea,  phosphate  island,  near  T'ytee. 
He  been  gone  one  year,  an'  she  get  very  fat,  but  she  don' 
say  one  thing.  Then  she  get  letter  speakin'  he  come 

390 


MYSTIC  ISLES  391 

back  nex'  week.  One  ol'  T'ytee  woman  she  work  for 
her  to  keep  all  chil'ren  clean,  an'  eat,  an'  she  notice  two 
day  ago  one  mornin'  she  more  thin.  She  ask  her, 
'Where  that  babee?'  She  say  the  varua,  a  bad  devil, 
take  it.  The  ol'  woman  remember  she  hear  little  cry  in 
night,  an'  when  a  girl  live  my  hotel  tell  her  she  saw  Pepe 
diggin'  in  garden,  she  talk  and  talk,  an'  by  'n'  by  police 
come,  an'  fin'  babee  under  rose-bush.  It  dead,  but  Cas- 
siou,  he  say,  been  breathe  when  bury,  because  have  air  in 
lung.  Then  gendarme  take  hoi'  Pepe,  and  she  tell  right 
out  she  'f raid  for  her  husban',  an'  when  babee  born  she  go 
in  night  an'  dig  hole  an'  plant  her  babee  under  rose- 
bush. Xow,  maybe  white  people  say  that  Pepe  jus' 
like  all  T'ytee  woman." 

Lovaina  wore  a  wine-colored  peignoit,  and  in  her  red- 
brown  hair  many  strands  of  the  diaphanous  reva-reva, 
-delicate  and  beautiful,  a  beloved  ornament  taken  from 
the  young  palm-leaf.  O'Laughlin  Considine  and 
Brooke  were  much  concerned  for  the  unhappy  mother, 
4nd  asked  how  she  was. 

"She  cut  off  her  hair,"  answered  Lovaina,  "like  I  do 
when  my  1'i'l  boy  was  killed  in  cyclone  nineteen  huner' 
six.  It  never  grow  good  after  like  before."  Her  hair 
was  quite  two  feet  long  and  very  luxuriant,  and  like  all 
Tahitian  hair,  simply  in  two  plaits. 

Brooke  expressed  his  curiosity  over  what  Lovaina 
had  said,  "jus'  like  all  T'ytee  woman." 

"Was  that  a  custom  of  Tahiti  mothers,  to  bury  their 
babes  alive  at  birth?"  he  asked. 

Lovaina  blushed. 

"Better  you  ask  Tetuanui  'bout  them  Arioi,"  she  re- 
plied confusedly. 


392  MYSTIC  ISLES 

The  chief  pleaded  that  he  could  not  explain  such  a 
complicated  matter  in  French,  and  if  he  did,  M.  Consi- 
dine  would  not  understand  that  language.  But  with 
the  question  raised,  the  conversation  continued  about 
infanticide  and  depopulation.  The  chief  quoted  the 
death-sentence  upon  his  race  pronounced  by  the  Tahi- 
tian  prophets  centuries  ago: 

"E  tupu  te  fan,  et  toro  te  farero,  e  mou  te  taataf" 

"The  hibiscus  shall  grow,  the  coral  spread,  and  man  shall  cease !"" 

"There  were,  according  to  Captain  Cook,  sixty  or 
seventy  thousand  Tahitians  on  this  island  when  the 
whites  came,"  continued  the  chief,  sadly.  "That  num- 
ber may  have  been  too  great,  for  perhaps  Tooti  calcu- 
lated the  population  of  the  whole  island  by  the  crowd 
that  always  followed  him,  but  there  were  several  score 
thousand.  Now  I  can  count  the  thousands  on  the  rin- 
gers of  one  hand." 

We  talked  of  the  sweeping  away  of  the  people  of  the 
Marquesas  Islands  and  of  all  the  Polynesians.  The  Ha- 
waiians  are  only  twenty-two  thousand.  When  the 
haole  set  foot  on  shore  there,  he  counted  four  hundred 
thousand. 

Time  was  when  so  great  was  the  congestion  in  these 
islands,  as  in  the  Marquesas  and  Hawaii,  that  the  priests 
and  chiefs  instituted  devices  for  checking  it.  Infanti- 
cide seemed  the  easiest  way  to  prevent  hurtful  increase. 
Stringent  rules  were  made  against  large  families.  On 
some  islands  couples  were  limited  to  two  children  or  only 
one,  and  all  others  born  were  killed  immediately.  Race 
suicide  had  here  its  simplest  form.  The  Polynesian 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  393 

race  must  have  grown  to  very  great  numbers  on  every 
island  they  settled  from  Samoa  to  Hawaii,  and  perhaps 
these  numbers  induced  migrations.  They  doubtless 
grew  to  threatening  swarms  before  they  began  checking 
the  increase.  Thomas  Carver,  professor  of  political 
economy  at  Harvard,  says: 

Even  if  the  wants  of  the  individual  never  expanded  at  all, 
it  is  quite  obvious  that  an  indefinite  increase  in  the  number  of 
individuals  in  any  locality  would,  sooner  or  later,  result  in 
scarcity  and  bring  them  into  conflict  with  nature,  and,  there- 
fore, into  conflict  with  one  another.  That  human  populations 
are  physiologically  capable  of  indefinite  increase,  if  time  be 
allotted,  is  admitted,  and  must  be  admitted  by  any  one  who  has 
given  the  slightest  attention  to  the  subject.  Among  the  non- 
economizing  animals  and  plants,  it  is  not  the  limits  of  their 
procreative  power  but  the  limits  of  subsistence  which  determine 
their  numbers.  Neither  is  it  lack  of  procreative  power  which 
limits  numbers  in  the  case  of  man,  the  economic  animal.  With 
him  also  it  is  a  question  of  subsistence,  but  of  subsistence  ac- 
cording to  some  standard.  Being  gifted  with  economic  fore- 
sight he  will  not  multiply  beyond  the  point  where  he  can  main- 
tain that  standard  which  he  considers  decent.  But — and  this 
is  especially  to  be  noted — so  powerful  are  his  procreative  and 
domestic  instincts  that  he  will  multiply  up  to  the  point  where 
it  is  difficult  to  maintain  whatever  standard  he  has. 

Instinct  early  taught  society  everywhere  protection 
against  the  irksome  condition  of  too  many  people  and  too 
little  food.  The  old  were  killed  or  deserted  in  wander- 
ings or  migrations,  and  infanticide  and  abortion 
practised,  as  they  are  commonly  in  Africa  to-day.  Six- 
sevenths  of  India  have  for  ages  practised  female  infan- 
ticide, yet  India  increases  two  millions  annually,  and 


394  MYSTIC  ISLES 

famine  stalks  year  in  and  year  out.  Fifteen  million 
Chinese  are  doomed  to  die  of  starvation  in  1921,  ac- 
cording to  official  statements. 

Able-bodied  adults  in  their  prime  bear  the  burdens  of 
society  everywhere.  The  elders  and  their  children  are 
a  burden  on  them,  especially  in  primitive  society,  where 
capital  is  not  amassed,  and  food  must  be  procured  by 
some  labor,  either  of  the  chase,  fishing,  or  gathering 
fruits  and  herbs.  Only  advance  in  economic  power  has 
arrested  infanticide.  The  Greeks  thought  it  proper; 
the  Romans,  too.  The  early  Teutons  exposed  babes. 
The  Chinese  have  always  done  so. 

Procreation,  if  not  a  dominant  passion,  would  prob- 
ably have  ceased  long  ago,  and  the  race  perished.  In- 
dividual and  even  national  "race  suicide"  in  France  and 
New  England  indicated  the  possibilities  of  this  tend- 
ency. The  teachings  of  asceticism  which  had  such  power 
among  Christians  until  the  sixteenth  century  are  again 
heard  under  a  different  guise  in  at  least  one  of  the 
modern  cults  most  successful  in  the  United  States. 
Neo-Malthusianism  is  found  exemplified  in  the  two- 
child  families  of  the  nobles  of  France  and  Germany  and 
the  rich  of  New  England.  Parents  want  to  do  more 
for  children,  and  so  have  fewer,  and  think  proper  con- 
traception and  even  killing  the  foetus  in  its  early  stages. 
Modern  medicine  has  aided  this.  Many  women  in  many 
countries  for  ages  have  practised  abortion  in  order  not 
to  spoil  their  bodies  by  child-bearing.  To-day  the  de- 
mands of  fashion  and  of  social  pleasures  have  caused 
large  families  to  be  considered  even  vulgar  among  the 
extremists  in  the  mode.  Organizations  incited  by  the 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  395 

new  feminism  send  heralds  of  contraception  schemes  on 
lecture  tours  to  instruct  the  proletariat,  and  brave  women 
to  go  to  prison  for  giving  the  prescription.  The  well- 
to-do  have  always  been  cognizant  of  it. 

The  Tahitians  have  ever  been  adoring  of  little  ones, 
and  if  their  annals  are  stained  by  the  blood  of  innumer- 
able innocents  murdered  at  birth,  let  it  be  remembered 
that  it  was  a  law,  and  not  a  choice  of  parents — a  law  in- 
duced by  the  sternest  demands  of  social  economy.  Re- 
ligion or  the  domination  of  priests  commanded  it.  They 
obeyed,  as  Abraham  did  when  he  began  to  whet  his  knife 
for  his  son  Isaac.  To-day  in  Europe  conditions  pre- 
scribe conduct.  Morality  fades  before  race  demands. 
Polygamy  or  promiscuity  looms  a  possibility,  and  may 
yet  have  state  and  church  sanction,  as  in  Turkey. 

In  Tahiti,  from  time  immemorial,  as  native  annals 
went,  there  was  a  wondrous  set  of  men  and  women  called 
Arioi  who  killed  all  their  children,  and  whose  ways  and 
pleasures  recall  the  phallic  worshipers  of  ancient  Asian 
days.  Forgotten  now,  with  accounts  radically  differ- 
ing as  to  its  composition,  its  aims,  and  even  its  morals,  a 
hundred  romances  and  fables  woven  about  its  personnel, 
and  many  curious  hazards  upon  its  beginnings  and  se- 
cret purposes,  the  Arioi  society  constitutes  a  singular 
mystery,  still  of  intense  interest  to  the  student  of  the 
cabalistic,  though  buried  with  these  South  Sea  Greeks  a 
century  ago. 

The  Arioi,  in  its  time  of  divertisement,  was  a  lodge  of 
strolling  players,  musicians,  poets,  dancers,  wrestlers, 
pantomimists,  and  clowns,  the  merry  men  and  women  of 
the  Pacific  tropics.  They  were  the  leaders  in  the  wor- 


396  MYSTIC  ISLES 

ship  of  the  gods,  the  makers  and  masters  of  the  taboo, 
and  when  war  or  other  necessity  called  them  from  pleas- 
ure or  religion,  the  leaders  in  action  and  battle. 

The  ending  of  the  celebrated  order  came  about 
through  the  work  of  English  Christian  missionaries  and 
the  commercialized  conditions  accompanying  the  intro- 
duction among  the  Tahitians  of  European  standards,  in- 
ventions, customs,  and  prohibitions.  The  institution 
was  of  great  age,  without  written  chronicles,  and,  like 
all  Polynesian  history,  obscured  by  the  superstitions 
bred  of  oral  descent. 

"The  Arioi  have  been  in  Tahiti  as  long  as  the  Tahi- 
tians," said  the  old  men  to  the  first  whites. 

Of  all  the  marvels  of  the  South  Seas  unfolded  by 
their  discovery  to  Europeans,  and  their  scrutiny  by  ad- 
venturers and  scientists,  none  seems  so  striking  and  so 
provocative  of  curiosity  as  the  finding  in  Tahiti  of  a 
sect  thoroughly  communistic  in  character,  with  many 
elements  of  refinement  and  genius,  which  obliterated 
the  taboos  against  women,  and  though  nominally  for 
the  worship  of  the  generative  powers  of  nature,  mixed 
murder  and  minstrelsy  in  its  rites  and  observance.  For 
what  wrote  red  the  records  of  this  society  in  the  jour- 
nals of  the  discoverers,  missionaries,  and  early  Euro- 
pean dwellers  in  Tahiti,  was  the  Arioi  primary  plank 
of  membership — that  no  member  should  permit  his  or 
her  child  to  live  after  birth.  As  at  one  time  the  Arioi 
society  embraced  a  fifth  of  the  population,  and  had  un- 
bounded influence  and  power,  this  stern  rule  of  infanti- 
cide had  to  do  with  the  depopulation  of  the  island,  or, 
rather,  the  prevention  of  overpopulation.  Yet  while  the 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  397 

Arioi  had  existed  as  far  back  as  their  legends  ran,  Cap- 
tain Cook,  as  said  Tetuanui,  estimated  the  Tahitians  to 
number  seventy  thousand  in  1769.  The  chronicles  say 
that  the  bizarre  order  was  rooted  out  a  hundred  years 
ago.  There  are  barely  five  thousand  living  of  this  ex- 
quisite race,  which  the  white  had  found  without  dis- 
ease, happy,  and  radiantly  healthy.  Evidently  the  Arioi 
had  merely  preserved  a  supportable  maximum  of  num- 
bers, and  it  remained  for  civilization  to  doom  the  entire 
people. 

The  Arioi  fathers  and  mothers  strangled  their  chil- 
dren or  buried  them  immediately  after  birth,  for  it  was 
infamous  to  have  them,  and  their  existence  in  an  Arioi 
family  would  have  created  as  much  consternation  as  in 
a  Tibetan  nunnery. 

Infanticide  in  Tahiti  and  the  surrounding  islands  was 
not  confined  to  the  Arioi.  The  first  three  children  of 
all  couples  were  usually  destroyed,  and  twins  were  both 
killed.  In  the  largest  families  more  than  two  or  three 
children  were  seldom  spared,  and  as  they  were  a  pro- 
lific race,  their  not  nursing  the  sacrificed  innocents  made 
for  more  frequent  births.  Four,  six,  or  even  ten  chil- 
dren would  be  killed  by  one  couple  during  their  married 
life.  Ellis,  an  English  missionary,  says  that  not  fewer 
than  two-thirds  of  all  born  wrere  destroyed.  This  was 
the  ordinary  habit  of  the  Tahitians.  The  Arioi  spared 
not  one. 

Ellis  wrote  ninety  years  ago.  He  helped  to  disrupt 
the  society.  The  confessions  of  scores  of  its  former 
members  were  poured  into  his  burning  ears.  In  his 
unique  book  of  his  life  in  Tahiti,  he  described  their 


398  MYSTIC  ISLES 

dramas,  pantomimes,  and  dances,  their  religious  rituals 
and  the  extraordinary  flights  to  which  their  merriment 
and  ecstasy  went.  Says  Ellis: 

These,  though  the  general  amusements  of  the  Ariois,  were  not 
the  only  purposes  for  which  they  were  assembled.  They  in- 
cluded : 

"All  monstrous,  all  prodigious  things." 

And  these  were  abominable,  unutterable;  in  some  of  their 
meetings,  they  appear  to  have  placed  invention  on  the  rack  to 
discover  the  worst  pollutions  of  which  it  was  possible  for  man 
to  be  guilty,  and  to  have  striven  to  outdo  each  other  in  the  most 
revolting  practices.  The  mysteries  of  iniquity,  and  acts  of 
more  than  bestial  degradation,  to  which  they  were  at  times 
addicted,  must  remain  in  the  darkness  in  which  even  they  felt  it 
sometimes  expedient  to  conceal  them.  I  will  not  do  violence  to 
my  sensibilities  or  offend  those  of  my  readers,  by  details  of 
conduct,  which  the  mind  cannot  contemplate  without  pollution 
and  pain. 

In  these  pastimes,  in  their  accompanying  abominations,  and 
the  often-repeated  practices  of  the  most  unrelenting,  murderous 
cruelty,  these  wandering  Ariois  passed  their  lives,  esteemed  by 
the  people  as  a  superior  order  of  beings,  closely  allied  to  the 
gods,  and  deriving  from  them  direct  sanction,  not  only  for  their 
abominations,  but  even  for  their  heartless  murders.  Free  from 
care  or  labor,  they  roved  from  island  to  island,  supported  by 
the  chiefs  and  priests ;  and  were  often  feasted  with  provisions 
plundered  from  the  industrious  husbandman,  whose  gardens 
were  spoiled  by  the  hands  of  lawless  violence,  to  provide  their 
entertainments,  while  his  own  family  were  not  infrequently  de- 
prived thereby  for  a  time,  of  the  means  of  subsistence.  Such 
was  their  life  of  luxurious  and  licentious  indolence  and  crime. 

Yet  each  Arioi  had  his  own  wife,  also  a  member  of  the 
society.  Improper  conduct  toward  an  Arioi's  wife  by 
fln  Arioi  was  punished  often  by  death.  To  a  woman 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  399 

such  membership  meant  a  singular  freedom  from  the 
tabus,  prohibitions,  that  had  forbidden  her  eating  with 
men,  tasting  pig,  and  other  delicacies.  She  became  the 
equal  and  companion  of  these  most  interesting  of  her 
race,  and  talent  in  herself  received  due  honor.  She 
sacrificed  her  children  for  a  career,  as  is  done  to-day  less 
bloodily. 

Believers  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  the  Arioi  im- 
agined a  heaven  suited  to  their  own  wishes.  They 
called  it  Rohutu  noa-noa,  or  Fragrant  Paradise.  In  it 
all  were  in  the  first  flush  of  virility,  and  enjoyed  the  good 
things  promised  the  faithful  by  Mohammed.  The  road 
to  this  abode  of  houris  and  roasted  pig  was  not  to  be  trod 
in  sackcloth  or  in  ashes,  but  in  wreaths  and  with  gaily 
colored  bodies.  To  the  sound  of  drums  and  of  flutes 
they  were  to  dance  and  sing  for  the  honor  of  their  merry 
god,  Oro,  and  after  a  lifetime  of  joy  and  license,  of  de- 
nial of  nothing,  unless  it  hurt  their  order,  they  were  to 
die  to  an  eternity  of  celestial  riot. 

As  old  as  the  gods  was  the  society  of  the  Arioi,  said 
the  Tahitians.  Oro,  the  chief  god,  took  a  human  wife, 
and  descended  on  a  rainbow  to  her  home.  He  spent  his 
Slights  with  her,  and  every  morning  returned  to  the 
heavens.  Two  of  his  younger  brothers  searched  for  him, 
and  lacking  wedding  presents,  one  transformed  himself 
into  a  pig  and  a  bunch  of  red  feathers.  The  other  pre- 
sented these,  and  though  they  remained  with  the  wedded 
pair,  the  brother  took  back  his  own  form.  Oro,  to  re- 
ward them,  made  them  gods  and  Arioi.  Ever  after  a 
pig  and  red  feathers  were  offerings  to  the  idol  of  Oro 
by  the  Arioi.  The  brothers  formed  the  society  and 
named  the  charter  members  of  it  in  different  islands, 


400  MYSTIC  ISLES 

and  by  these  names  those  holding  their  offices  were 
known  until  they  were  abolished. 

When  called  together  by  their  chief,  the  members  of 
the  order  made  a  round  of  visits  throughout  the  archi- 
pelago, in  as  many  as  seventy  great  canoes,  carrying 
with  them  their  costumes  and  musical  instruments  and 
their  servants.  They  were  usually  welcomed  enthusi- 
astically at  their  landing,  and  pigs,  fruits,  and  kara 
prepared  for  their  delectation.  They  were  gorgeous- 
looking  performers  in  their  pantomimes,  for  besides 
tattooing,  which  marked  their  rank,  they  were  deco- 
rated with  charcoal  and  the  scarlet  dye  mail,  and  wore 
girdles  of  yellow  fi-leaves,  or  vests  of  ripe,  golden  plan- 
tain-leaves. Their  heads  were  wreathed  in  the  yellow 
and  red  leaves  of  the  Jiuiu,  and  perhaps  behind  an  ear 
they  wore  a  flower  of  brilliant  hue. 

They  had  seven  ranks,  like  the  chairs  of  a  secret  order 
in  Europe  or  in  the  United  States  nowadays.  The  first, 
the  highest,  was  the  Avae  parai,  painted  leg.  The  Arioi 
of  this  class  was  tattooed  solidly  from  the  knees  down. 
The  second,  Otiore,  had  both  arms  tattooed;  the  third, 
Harotea,  both  sides  of  the  body;  the  fourth,  Hua, 
marked  shoulders ;  the  fifth,  Atoro,  a  small  stripe  on  the 
left  side;  the  sixth,  Ohemara,  a  small  circle  around  each 
ankle,  and  the  seventh,  Poo,  were  uninked.  They  were 
the  neophytes,  and  had  to  do  the  heavy  work  of  the  or- 
der, though  servants,  not  members,  termed  fauaunau, 
were  part  of  the  corps.  These  were  sworn  not  to  have 
any  offspring. 

The  Arioi  kept  the  records  of  the  Tahitian  nation. 
In  their  plays  they  reenacted  all  the  chief  events  in  the 
history  of  the  race,  and  as  there  was  no  written  account, 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  401 

these  dramas  were,  with  the  legends  and  stories  they  re^ 
cited,  the  perpetuation  of  their  archives  and  chronicles. 
They  were  apt  in  travesty  and  satire.  They  ridiculed 
the  priests  and  current  events,  and  by  their  wit  made 
half  the  people  love  them  and  half  fear  them.  A  man- 
ager directed  all  their  performances.  They  aimed  at 
perfect  rhythm  in  their  chants  and  dances,  and  grace 
and  often  sheer  fun  in  their  pantomimes.  Some  were 
wrestlers,  but  boxing  they  left  for  others.  As  with  the 
Marquesans  to-day,  they  had  a  fugleman,  or  leader,  in 
all  songs,  who  introduced  the  subject  in  a  prologue,  and 
occasionally  gave  the  cue  to  a  change. 

Xo  man  could  reach  high  rank  with  them  except  by 
histrionic  ability  and  a  strict  compliance  with  their  rules. 
Exceptions  to  the  first  requirement  might  be  found  in 
the  great  chiefs.  A  candidate  came  before  the  lodge  in 
gala  fashion,  painted,  wreathed,  and  laughing.  Leap- 
ing into  their  circle,  he  joined  madly  in  the  rout,  and 
thus  made  known  his  desire  for  admittance.  If  worthy, 
he  became  a  servant,  and  only  after  proving  by  a  long 
novitiate  his  qualities  was  he  given  the  lowest  rank. 
Then  he  received  the  name  by  which  he  would  be  known 
in  the  society.  He  swore  to  kill  his  children,  if  he  had 
any,  and  crooking  his  left  arm,  he  struck  it  with  his  right 
hand,  and  repeated  the  oath: 

"The  mountain  above,  the  sacred  mountain;  the  floor 
beneath  Tamapua,  projecting  point  of  the  sea;  Man- 
unu,  of  majestic  forehead;  Teariitarai,  the  splendor  in 
the  sky;  I  am  of  the  mountain  huruhuru"  He  spoke 
his  Arioi  name,  and  snatched  the  covering  of  the  chief 
woman  present. 

Occasionally  there  might  be  persons  or  districts  that 


402  MYSTIC  ISLES 

felt  themselves  unwilling  or  too  poor  to  entertain  the 
Arioi.  These  had  many  devices  to  overcome  such  ob- 
stacles. They  would  surround  a  child  and  pretend  to 
raise  him  to  kingly  rank,  and  then  demand  from  his 
parents  suitable  presents  for  such  a  distinction. 

At  death  there  were  rites  for  the  Arioi  apart  from 
those  for  others.  They  paid  the  priest  of  Romotane, 
who  kept  the  key  of  their  paradise,  to  admit  the  deced- 
ent to  Rohutu  noa-noa  in  the  reva  or  clouds  above  the 
mountain  of  Temehani  unauna,  in  the  island  of  Raiatea. 
The  ordinary  people  could  seldom  afford  the  fees  de- 
manded by  the  priest,  and  had  to  be  satisfied  with  a  de- 
nial of  this  Mussulman  Eden  reserved  for  the  festive  and 
devil-may-care  Arioi,  as  ordinary  people  perforce  ab- 
stain from  intoxicants  in  America  while  the  rich  drink 
their  fill.  The  historian  Lecky  says: 

It  was  a  favorite  doctrine  of  the  Christian  Fathers  that  con- 
cupiscence, or  the  sensual  passion,  was  the  "original  sin"  of 
human  nature;  and  it  must  be  owned  that  the  progress  of 
knowledge,  which  is  usually  extremely  opposed  to  the  ascetic 
theory  of  life,  concurs  with  the  theological  view,  in  showing 
the  natural  force  of  this  appetite  to  be  far  greater  than  the 
well-being  of  man  requires.  The  writings  of  Aialthus  have 
proved,  what  the  Greek  moralists  appear  in  a  considerable 
degree  to  have  seen,  that  its  normal  and  temperate  exercise 
would  produce,  if  universal,  the  utmost  calamities  to  the  world, 
and  that,  while  nature  seems,  in  the  most  unequivocal  manner, 
to  urge  the  human  race  to  early  marriages,  the  first  condition 
of  an  advancing  civilization  is  to  restrain  or  diminish  them. 

Conceive  the  state  of  Tahiti,  where,  as  through  all 
Polynesia,  the  girls  have  their  fling  at  promiscuity  from 
puberty  to  the  late  teens  or  early  twenties,  when  an  im- 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  403 

mense  and  increasing  population  compelled  the  think- 
ing men  to  devise  a  remedy  for  the  starvation  which  in 
times  of  drought  or  comparative  failure  of  the  feis  or 
breadfruit  or  a  scarcity  of  fish  menaced  the  nation! 
That  the  cruel  remedy  of  infanticide  was  chosen  may  be 
laid  to  ignorance  of  fceticidal  methods,  and  the  indispo- 
sition of  the  languorous  women  to  suffer  pain  or  to 
risk  their  own  lives  or  health. 

Lecky  says  that  however  much  moralists  may  en- 
force the  obligation  of  extra-matrimonial  purity,  this 
obligation  has  never  been  even  approximately  regarded. 
One  could  hardly  expect  from  the  heathen  Tahitians 
moral  restraint.  Malthus,  a  Christian  clergyman,  did 
not  until  the  second  edition  of  his  book  add  that  to  vice 
and  misery  as  checks  of  nature  to  an  increase  of  humans 
faster  than  the  means  of  subsistence.  Nor  have  most 
Christian  or  civilized  nations  made  such  a  check  effec- 
tual. 

The  ever-dominant  and  only  inherent  impulse  in  all 
living  beings,  including  man,  is  the  will  to  remain  alive 
— the  will,  that  is,  to  attain  power  over  those  forces 
which  make  life  difficult  or  impossible. 

All  schemes  of  morality  are  nothing  more  than  efforts 
to  put  into  permanent  codes  the  expedients  found  use- 
ful by  some  given  race  in  the  course  of  its  successful  en- 
deavors to  remain  alive. 

Did  not  Zarathustra  so  philosophize,  and  is  not  the 
national  trend  in  Europe  exalting  his  theory?  With 
the  difference  that  nationalism  takes  the  place  of  in- 
dividualism in  the  scheme  of  survival  and  a  better  place 
in  the  sun  is  the  legend  on  the  banners. 

Unable  to  find  enemies  to  keep  their  numbers  down, 


404  MYSTIC  ISLES 

exempt  from  the  epidemics  and  endemics  of  Europe  and 
Asia,  unacquainted  with  the  contraceptives  known  until 
recently  only  by  our  rich,  but  now  preached  by  organ- 
ized societies  to  the  humblest,  the  Tahitian,  Marquesan, 
and  Hawaiian  came  to  consider  the  blotting  out  of  lives 
just  begun  worthy  deeds. 

"The  only  good  Indian  is  a  dead  Indian,"  was  our 
own  cynical  Western  maxim  when  life  and  opportunity 
to  lay  by  for  the  future  meant  ceaseless  struggle  with 
the  dispossessed. 

We,  in  situations  of  dire  necessity,  eat  our  own  fel- 
lows. We  have  done  it  at  sea  and  on  land.  We  eat 
their  flesh  when  shipwreck  or  isolation  urges  survival. 
We  let  children  die  by  the  myriad  for  lack  of  proper 
care  and  sustenance,  and  kill  them  in  factories  and  ten- 
ements to  gain  luxuries  for  ourselves.  One  justification 
for  slavery  was  that  it  gave  leisure  for  culture  to  the, 
slave-owners,  and  that  Southern  chivalry  and  the  charrr 
of  Southern  womanhood  outweighed  the  fettered  black 
bodies  and  souls  in  the  scale  of  achievement. 

The  Tahitian  did  the  best  he  could,  and  the  Arioi  set 
the  example  in  a  total  observance  not  to  be  demanded  or 
expected  of  the  mass.  It  is  related  that  if  the  child 
cried  before  destruction,  it  was  spared,  for  they  had  not 
the  heart  to  kill  it.  If  Arioi,  the  parents  must  have 
given  it  away  or  otherwise  avoided  the  opprobrium. 

Another  explanation  of  the  bloody  oath  of  the  Arioi 
might  be  found  in  an  effort  of  the  princes  of  Tahiti  to 
prevent  in  this  manner  the  excessive  growth  of  the  Arii, 
or  noble  caste.  The  Arioi  society  was  founded  by 
princes  and  led  by  them,  but  that  they  sought  to  break 
down  the  power  of  the  nobles  is  evidenced  by  their  ad 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  405 

mitting  virtually  all  castes  to  it,  thus  making  it  a  privi- 
leged democracy,  in  which  birthrights  had  not  the  sway 
they  had  outside  it,  but  in  which  the  chap  who  could 
fight  and  dance,  sing,  and  tell  good  stories  might  climb 
from  lowly  position  to  honor  and  popularity,  and  in 
which  a  clever  woman  could  make  her  mark. 

The  early  missionaries  who  had  to  combat  the  in- 
fluence of  the  Arioi  may  have  exaggerated  its  baseness. 
In  their  unsophisticated  minds,  unprepared  by  reading 
or  experience  for  comparisons,  most  of  them  sailing  di- 
rectly from  English  divinity  schools  or  small  bucolic 
pastorates,  the  devout  preachers  thought  Sabbatarian- 
ism of  as  much  consequence  as  morals,  and  vastly  more 
important  than  health  or  earthly  happiness.  They  be- 
lieved in  diabolical  possession,  and  were  prone  to  mag- 
nify the  wickedness  of  the  heathen,  as  one  does  hard 
tasks.  When  Christianity  had  power  in  Tahiti,  the 
bored  natives  were  sometimes  scourged  into  church,  and 
fines  and  imprisonment  for  lack  of  devotion  were  im- 
posed by  the  native  courts.  Often  self-sacrificing,  the 
missionaries  felt  it  was  for  the  natives'  eternal  walfare, 
and  that  souls  might  be  saved  even  by  compulsion.  The 
Arioi  society  melted  under  a  changed  control  and 
Christian  precepts. 

Livingstone  in  the  wilds  of  primeval  Africa,  making 
few  converts,  but  giving  his  life  to  noble  effort,  medi- 
tated often  upon  the  success  of  the  missionaries  in  the 
South  Seas — a  success  perhaps  magnified  by  the  society 
which  financed  and  cheered  the  restless  men  whom  it 
sent  to  Tahiti.  Livingstone  in  his  darker  moments, 
consoling  himself  with  the  accounts  of  these  achieve- 
ments in  the  missionary  annals,  doubted  his  own  effi- 


406  MYSTIC  ISLES 

cacy  against  the  deep  depravity  and  heathenism  of  his 
black  flock.  The  fact  unknown  to  him  was  that  the 
missionaries  in  Polynesia  preached  and  prayed,  doctored 
and  taught,  ten  years  before  they  made  a  single  convert. 
It  was  not  until  they  bagged  the  king  that  a  pawn  was 
taken  by  the  whites  from  the  adversaries'  stubborn  game. 
The  genius  of  these  strugglers  against  an  apparent  im- 
pregnable seat  of  wickedness  was  patience,  "the  passion 
of  great  hearts." 

But  conquering  once  politically,  the  missionaries 
found  their  task  all  but  too  easy  to  suit  militant  Chris- 
tians. As  the  converted  drunkard  and  burglar  at  a 
slum  pentecost  pour  out  their  stories  of  weakness  and 
crime,  so  these  Arioi,  glorying  in  their  being  washed 
white  as  snow,  recited  to  hymning  congregations  con- 
fessions that  made  the  offenses  of  the  Marquis  de  Sade 
or  Jack  the  Ripper  fade  into  peccadilloes. 

Christian  says: 

Their  Hcvas  or  dramatic  entertainments,  pageants  and 
tableaus,  of  varying  degrees  of  grossness,  similar  to  the  more 
elaborate  and  polished  products  of  the  early  Javanese  and 
Peruvian  drama  .  .  .  one  cannot  help  fancying  must  be  all 
pieces  out  of  the  same  puzzle.  ...  I  have  with  some  pains 
discovered  the  origin  of  the  name  "Arioi."  It  throws  a  lurid 
light  on  the  character  of  some  of  the  Asiatic  explorers  who 
must  have  visited  this  part  of  the  Eastern  Pacific  prior  to  the 
Europeans.  In  Maori  the  word  Karioi  means  debauched, 
profligate,  good-for-nothing.  In  Raratonga  [an  island  near 
Tahiti]  the  adjective  appears  as  Kariei.  These  are  probably 
slightly  worn  down  forms  of  the  Persian  Khara-bati,  which  has 
precisely  the  same  significance  as  the  foregoing.  One  is  forced 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  Arabian  Nights  stories  of  the  voy- 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  407 

ages  of  Sindbad  the  Sailor  were  founded  on  a  bed-rock  of  solid 
fact,  and  that  Persian  and  Arab  merchants,  pirates  and  slave- 
traders,  must  have  penetrated  into  these  far-off  waters,  and 
brought  their  vile,  effeminate  luxury  and  shameful  customs 
with  them  from  Asia,  of  which  transplanted  iniquity,  the  parent 
soil  half-forgotten,  this  word,  like  several  others  connected 
with  revelry  and  vice,  like  a  text  in  scarlet  lettering,  survives 
to  this  da}'. 

The  first  Jesuit  missionaries  to  the  Caroline  Islands 
found  there  an  organization  with  privileges  and  some- 
what  the  same  objects  as  the  Arioi,  which  was  called 
Uritoi.  As  "t"  is  a  letter  often  omitted  or  altered  in 
these  island  tongues,  it  is  not  hard  by  leaving  it  out  to 
find  a  likeness  in  the  names  Arioi  and  Urioi.  The  Caro- 
lines and  Tahiti  are  thousands  of  miles  apart,  and  not  in- 
habited by  the  same  race. 

Ellis  was  a  missionary  incapable  by  education,  ex- 
perience, and  temperament  of  appreciation  of  the  ar- 
tistic life  of  the  Arioi.  He  would  have  chased  the  faun 
into  seclusion  until  he  could  clothe  him  in  English  trous- 
ers, and  would  have  rendered  the  Venus  of  Milo  into 
bits.  Despite  an  honest  love  for  mankind  and  consider- 
able discernment,  he  saw  nothing  in  the  Arioi  but  a  logi- 
cal and  diabolical  condition  of  paganism.  Artistry  he 
did  not  rank  high,  nor,  to  find  a  reason  for  the  Arioi,  did 
he  go  back  of  Satan's  ceaseless  seeking  whom  he  may 
devour. 

Bovis,  a  Frenchman,  world  traveled,  having  seen  per- 
haps the  frescos  of  Pompeii,  and  familiar  with  the  his- 
tories of  old  Egypt,  India,  Greece,  Persia,  and  Rome, 
knew  that  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  had  their  replicas  in  all 


408  MYSTIC  ISLES 

times,  and  that  often  such  conduct  as  that  of  the  Arioi 
was  associated  among  ancient  or  primitive  peoples  with 
artistic  and  interesting  manifestations. 

He  searched  the  memories  of  the  old  men  and  women 
for  other  things  than  abominations,  and  gave  the  Arioi 
a  good  name  for  possession  of  many  excellent  qualities 
and  for  a  rare  development  of  histrionic  ability.  But 
more  than  being  mere  mimes  and  dancers,  the  Arioi  were 
the  warriors,  the  knights  of  that  day  and  place,  the  men- 
at-arms,  the  chosen  companions  of  the  king  and  chiefs, 
and  in  general  the  bravest  and  most  cultivated  of  the 
Tahitians.  They  were  an  extended  round-table  for 
pleasure  in  peace  and  for  counsel  and  deeds  of  derring- 
do  in  war.  The  society  wras  a  nursery  of  chivalry,  a 
company  which  recruited,  but  did  not  reproduce  them- 
selves. They  had  a  solid  basis,  and  lasted  long  because 
the  society  kept  out  of  politics. 

The  members  never  forgot  the  duty  due  their  chiefs. 
They  accompanied  them  in  their  enterprises,  and  they 
killed  their  fellow-members  in  the  enemy's  camp,  as 
Masons  fought  Masons  in  the  American  Civil  War  and 
in  the  wars  of  Europe.  In  peace  they  were  epicures. 
They  consorted  together  only  for  pleasure  and  comfort 
in  their  reunions.  The  Arioi  made  their  order  no  step- 
ping-stone to  power  or  office,  but  in  it  swam  in  sensuous 
luxury,  each  giving  his  talents  to  please  his  fellows  and 
to  add  luster  to  his  society. 

To  the  English  missionaries  who  converted  the  Tahi- 
tians to  the  Christian  faith  the  Arioi  adherent  was  the 
chief  barrier,  the  fiercest  opponent,  and,  when  won  over, 
the  most  enthusiastic  neophyte.  In  that  is  found  the 
secret  of  the  society's  strength.  It  embraced  all  the 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  409 

imaginative,  active,  ambitious  Tahitians,  to  whom  it 
gave  opportunities  to  display  varied  talents,  to  form 
close  friendships,  to  rise  in  rank,  to  meet  on  evener  terms 
those  more  aristocratic  in  degree,  and,  above  all,  to 
change  the  monotony  of  their  existence  by  eating,  drink- 
ing, and  being  merry  in  company,  and  all  at  the  expense 
of  the  other  fellow.  But — and  the  more  you  study  the 
Polynesian,  the  subtler  are  his  strange  laws  and  taboos 
— the  main  provision  in  the  Arioi  constitution  was  un- 
doubtedly conceived  in  the  desire  to  prevent  over-popu- 
lation. 

Pepe,  the  woman  of  Tuatini,  had  returned  to  the  ways 
of  the  Arioi  because  her  husband  had  adopted  the  white 
convention  of  jealousy  and  monogamy.  Only  Tahi- 
tians like  Tetuanui  now  knew  anything  about  the  order, 
and  so  many  generations  had  they  been  taught  shame  of 
it  that  the  very  name  was  unspoken,  as  that  of  the  mis- 
tletoe god  was  among  the  Druids  after  St.  Patrick  had 
accomplished  his  mission  in  Ireland. 


CHAPTER  XX 

Rupert  Brooke  and  I  discuss  Tahiti — We  go  to  a  wedding  feast — How  the 
cloth  was  spread — What  we  ate  and  drank — A  Gargantuan  feeder — 
Songs  and  dances  of  passion — The  royal  feast  at  Tetuanui's — I  leave 
for  Vairao — Butscher  and  the  Lermontoffs. 

AT  Mataiea  weeks  passed  without  incident  other 
than  those  of  the  peaceful,  pleasant  round  of 
walking,  swimming,  fishing,  thinking,  and  re- 
freshing slumber.  My  mind  dismissed  the  cares  of  the 
mainland,  and  the  interests  thrust  upon  me  there- 
business,  convention,  the  happenings  throughout  the 
world.  I  achieved  to  a  degree  the  state  in  which 
body  and  spirit  were  pliant  instruments  for  the  sim- 
ple needs  and  indulgences  of  my  being,  and  my  mind, 
relieved  of  the  cark  of  custom  in  advanced  com- 
munities, considered,  and  clarified  as  never  before, 
the  values  of  life.  It  was  as  if  one  who  had  been 
confined  indoors  for  years  at  a  task  supervised  by  criti- 
cal guardians  was  moved  to  a  beautiful  garden  with  only 
laughing  children  for  playmates  and  a  kindly  nature 
alone  for  contemplation  and  guide. 

Brooke,  who  was  busied  an  hour  or  two  a  day  at  poems 
and  letters,  and  was  physically  active  most  of  the  time, 
spoke  of  this  with  me.  There  were  few  whites  in 
Tahiti  outside  Papeete  except  in  the  suburbs.  The 
French  in  the  time  of  Louis  le  Debonnaire  and  of  all 
that  period  thought  nature  unbeautiful.  The  nation 
has  ever  been  afraid  of  it,  but  let  natural  thoughts  be 

410 


MYSTIC  ISLES  411 

freely  spoken  and  written,  and  natural  acts  be  less  cen- 
sured than  elsewhere.     Even  in  late  years  their  con- 
ception of  nature  has  been  that  of  the  painter  Corot, 
delicate,  tender,  and  sad ;  not  free  and  primitive.     They 
had  possessed  Tahiti  scores  of  years,  and  yet  one  hardly 
saw  a  Frenchman,  and  never  a  Frenchwoman,  in  the  dis- 
tricts.    The  French  seldom  ever  ventured  in  the  sea  or 
the  stream  or  to  the  reef.     Other  Europeans  and  Amer- 
icans found  those  interesting,  at  least,  a  little.     Brooke 
and  I  swam  every  day  off  the  wharf  of  the  fhefferie. 
The  water  was  four  or  five  fathoms  deep,  dazzling  in  the 
vibrance  of  the  Southern  sun,  and  Brooke,  a  brilliant 
blond,  gleamed  in  the  violet  radiancy  like  a  dream  figure 
of  ivory.     We  dived  into   schools  of  the  vari-colored 
fish,  which  we  could  see  a  dozen  feet  below,  and  tried  to 
seize  them  in  our  hands,  and  we  spent  hours  floating  and 
playing  in  the  lagoon,  or  lying  on  our  backs  in  the  sun. 
We  laughed  at  his  native  name,  Pupure,  which  means 
fair,  and  at  the  titles  given  Tahiti  by  visitors:  the  New 
Cytherea  by  Bougainville,  a  russet  Ireland  by  McBir- 
ney,  my  fellow  voyager  on  the  Noa-Noa,  and  Aph- 
Rhodesia  by  a  South- African  who  had  fought  the  Boers 
and  loved  the  Tahitian  girls  and  who  now  idled  with  us. 
Brooke,  as  we  paddled  over  the  dimpled  lagoon,  quoted 
the    Greek    for    an   apt    description,    the    innumerable 
laughter  of  the  waves.     Brooke  had  been  in  Samoa,  and 
was  about  to  leave  for  England  after  several  months  in 
Tahiti.     He  wrote  home  that  he  had  found  the  most 
ideal  place  in  the  world  to  work  and  live  in.     On  the 
wide  veranda  he  composed  three  poems  of  merit,  "The 
Great  Lover,"  "Tiare  Tahiti,"  and  "Retrospect."     He 
could  understand  the  Polynesian,  and  he  loved  the  race, 


412  MYSTIC  ISLES 

and  hated  the  necessity  of  a  near  departure.  Their 
communism  in  work  he  praised  daily,  their  singing  at 
their  tasks,  and  their  wearing  of  flowers.  We  had  in 
common  admiration  of  those  qualities  and  a  fervor  for 
the  sun.  For  his  Greek  I  gave  him  St.  Francis's  can- 
ticle, wrhich  begins: 

Laudate  sie,  mi  signore,  cum  tuote  le  tue  creature, 
Spetialmente  messer  lo  frate  sole. 

Praised  be  my  Lord,  with  all  his  creatures,  and  especially  our 
brother  the  Sun,  our  sister  the  Moon,  our  brother  the  Wind, 
our  sister  Water,  who  is  very  serviceable  unto  us  and  humble 
and  chaste  and  clean ;  our  brother  Fire,  our  mother  Earth,  and 
last  of  all  for  our  sister  Death. 

We  remarked  that  while  we  plunged  into  the  sea 
bare,  Tahitians  never  wrent  completely  nude,  and  they 
were  more  modest  in  hiding  their  nakedness  than  any 
white  people  we  had  ever  met.  They  could  not  accede 
to  the  custom  of  Americans  and  Englishmen  of  public 
school  education  when  bathing  among  males  of  strip- 
ping to  the  buff  and  standing  about  without  self-con- 
sciousness. The  chief  had  said  that  in  former  times 
men  retained  their  pareus  except  when  they  went  fish- 
ing, at  which  time  they  wore  a  little  red  cap.  He  did 
not  know  whether  this  was  a  ceremonial  to  propitiate 
the  god  of  fishes  or  to  ward  off  evil  spirits  in  scales. 
Man  originated  on  the  seashore,  and  many  of  the  most 
primitive  habits  of  humans,  as  well  as  their  bodily  dif- 
ferences from  the  apes,  came  from  their  early  life  there. 
Man  pushed  back  from  the  salt  water  slowly. 

The  official  affairs  of  the  fhefferie,  beyond  the  repair 
of  roads  and  bridges,  were  few.  Crime  among  Tahi- 
tians being  almost  unknown,  the  chief's  duties  as  magis- 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  413 

trate  were  negligible,  and  the  family  uttered  many  aues 
when  I  related  to  them  the  conditions  of  our  countries, 
with  murders,  assaults,  burglaries  and  rapine  as  daily 
news.  The  French  law  required  a  civil  ritual  for  mar- 
riage, and  Tetuanui  tied  the  legal  knots  in  his  district. 
I  was  at  the  phefferie  when  a  union  was  performed. 
The  bride  and  groom  were  of  the  middle  class  of  pros- 
perous landholders.  They  arrived  in  an  automobile 
wonderfully  adorned  with  flowers,  with  great  bouquets 
of  roses  and  ferns  on  the  lamps.  They  were  accom- 
panied by  cars  and  carriages  filled  with  their  families 
and  friends.  The  bride  was  in  a  white-lace  dress  from 
Paris,  with  veil  and  orange-blossoms,  and  the  groom  in 
a  heavy  black  frock-coat  over  white  drill  trousers  with 
lemon-colored,  tight  shoes;  both  looking  very  ill  at  ease 
and  hot.  The  father  of  the  groom  must  have  us  to  the 
church  and  to  the  wedding  feast,  so  Brooke  and  I  rode 
in  a  cart,  I  on  the  mother's  lap,  and  the  poet  on  the 
knees  of  the  father.  The  jollity  of  the  arearea  was  al- 
ready apparent,  and  the  father  vainly  whipped  his 
horse  to  outspeed  the  automobile.  All  the  vehicles 
raced  along  the  road  and  into  the  yard  of  the  Protestant 
church  of  Mataiea  at  top  gait. 

It  was  the  season  of  assemblage  of  the  manu  patia,  the 
wasps  brought  from  abroad,  and  quite  ten  thousand  were 
clustered  on  the  church  ceiling,  while  thousands  more 
patrolled  the  air  just  over  our  heads,  courting  and  quar- 
reling, buzzing  and  alighting  on  our  heads  and  necks. 
The  preacher  in  a  knee-length  Prince  Albert  of  black 
wool,  opened  so  that  I  saw  he  had  nothing  but  an  under- 
shirt beneath,  recited  the  ceremony  and  addressed  the 
couple.  He  took  a  ring  from  his  trousers-pocket,  un- 


U4  MYSTIC  ISLES 

wrapping  and  opening  its  box.  A  bridesmaid  in  a 
rose-colored  satin  gown  had  taken  off  the  bride's  glove, 
and  the  pastor  put  the  ring  upon  her  finger.  A  number 
of  young  men  acted  as  aids  and  witnesses,  and  all  who 
stood  were  pounced  upon  by  the  wasps.  They  betrayed 
no  evidence  of  nervousness,  but  at  the  installation  of  the 
ring,  the  groom,  with  a  desperate  motion,  tore  off  his 
stiff  collar  and  bared  his  robust  neck.  He  did  not  re- 
place it  that  day.  The  bride's  mother  wept  upon  my 
shoulder  throughout  the  quarter  of  an  hour.  Not  a 
trace  was  indicated  of  the  old  wedding  customs  of  the 
Tahitians,  as  Christianity  had  effaced  them  rigorously, 
and  though  the  Tahitians  had  had  plenty  of  ceremonies 
for  all  public  acts,  as  had  the  Greeks  and  Romans, 
many  had  been  forgotten  under  the  scourge  of  ortho- 
doxy before  any  white  wrote  freely  of  the  island.  They 
are  lost  to  record  with  the  old  language. 

After  the  rite,  all  made  a  dash  for  their  equipages, 
and  raced  for  the  bride's  home,  where,  as  customary, 
the  fete  cliampetre  was  given.  Again  on  mama's  lap, 
and  Brooke  on  papa's,  both  ample,  we  hurried,  the  bon 
pere  not  averse  to  taking  a  wheel  off  the  bridal  party's 
motor-car.  With  cries  of  delight  we  drove  into  a  great 
cocoanut-grove,  and  a  thousand  feet  back  from  the 
Broom  Road  emerged  into  a  sunlit,  but  shady,  clear- 
ing. Huro!  the  banquet  was  already  being  spread. 
From  different  parts  of  the  plantation  men  came 
bearing  huge  platters  of  roasted  pig,  chicken,  taro, 
breadfruit,  and  feis,  with  bamboo  tubes  of  the  taiaro 
sauce  like  the  reeds  of  a  great  pipe-organ.  Caldrons 
of  shrimp,  crabs,  prawns,  and  lobsters  bubbled,  and  mon- 
strous heaps  of  tiny  oysters  were  being  opened.  Fresh 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  415 

fruit  was  in  rich  hoards:  bananas,  oranges,  custard- 
apples,  papayas,  pomegranates,  mangoes,  and  guavas. 

A  magnificent  bower  a  hundred  feet  long,  broad  and 
high,  had  been  erected  of  bamboo  and  gigantic  leaves. 
It  was  similar  to  a  temple  builded  by  the  ardent  wor- 
shipers of  Dionysus  to  celebrate  the  vine-god's  feast. 
The  roof  of  green  thatch  was  supported  on  a  score  of  the 
slender  pillars  of  the  ohe,  the  golden  bamboo,  and  there 
were  neither  sides  nor  doors.  The  pillars  were  wreathed 
with  ferns  and  orchids  from  the  forest  near  by,  and  on 
the  sward  between  them  were  spread  a  series  of  yellow 
mats  woven  in  the  Paumotu  atolls.  They  carpeted  the 
green  floor  of  the  temple,  and  upon  them,  in  the  center, 
the  graceful  leaves  of  the  cocoanut  stretched  to  mark 
the  division  of  the  vis-a-vis. 

From  these  long  leaves  rose  graduated  alabaster 
columns,  the  inner  stalks  of  the  banana-plants,  and  on 
them  were  fastened  flowers  and  ornaments,  fanciful 
creations  of  the  hands  of  Tahitian  women,  fashioned  of 
brilliant  leaves  and  of  bamboo-fiber  and  the  glossy  white 
arrowroot-fiber.  From  the  top  of  each  column  floated 
the  silken  film  of  the  snowy  reva-reva,  the  exquisite 
component  of  the  interior  of  young  cocoa-palm-leaves,  a 
gossamer  substance  the  extraction  of  which  is  as  difficult 
as  the  blowing  of  glass  goblets.  Varos,  marvelously 
spiced,  prawns,  and  crayfish,  garlanded  the  bases  of 
these  sylvan  shafts,  all  highly  decorative,  and  within 
reach  of  their  admirers. 

The  stiff  hand  of  the  white  which  had  garbed  the 
wedding  party  in  the  ungraceful  clothing  of  the  Euro- 
pean mode  had  failed  to  pose  the  natural  attitude  of  the 
Tahitian  toward  good  cheer. 


416  MYSTIC  ISLES 

A  pile  of  breadfruit-leaves  were  laid  before  each 
feaster's  space  in  lieu  of  plates,  and  four  half-cocoanut- 
shells,  containing  drinking  water,  cocoanut-milk,  grated 
ripe  cocoanut,  and  sea-water.  The  last  two  were  to  be 
mixed  to  sauce  the  dishes,  and  the  empty  one  filled  with 
fresh  water  for  a  finger-bowl. 

The  bride  and  groom  sat  at  the  head  of  the  leafy  board, 
their  intimates  about  them,  and  the  pastor,  who  had 
joined  them,  stood  a  few  moments  with  bowed  head  and 
closed  eyes  to  invoke  the  blessing  of  God  upon  the  revel-, 
as  did  the  orero,  the  pagan  priest  of  Tahiti  a  few  gen- 
erations ago.  The  pastor  and  I,  with  the  owner  of  the 
Atimaona  plantation  and  a  Mr.  Davey,  had  had  an 
appetizer  a  moment  before. 

We  all  sat  on  the  mats  according  to  bodily  habit,  the 
lithe  natives  on  their  heels,  the  grosser  ones  and  we 
whites  with  legs  crossed,  and  with  the  minister's  raising 
of  his  head  we  fell  to,  with  ease  of  position,  and  no  ar- 
tificial instruments  to  embarrass  our  hands.  We  trans- 
ferred each  to  his  own  breadfruit-leaves  what  he  desired 
from  the  stores  in  the  center,  meat  and  vegetables  and 
fruit,  and  seasoned  it  as  we  pleased.  New  leaves 
brought  by  boys  and  girls  constantly  replaced  used  ones, 
and  the  shells  of  salt  and  fresh  water  were  refilled. 

Barrels  of  white  and  red  wine  had  been  decanted  into 
bottles,  and  with  American  and  German  beer  stood  in 
phalanges  beside  the  milky  banana  columns,  and  from 
these  all  replenished  their  polished  beakers  of  the  dark 
nuts. 

The  oysters,  of  a  flavor  equaling  any  of  America  or 
Europe,  were  minute  and  of  a  greenish-copper  hue,  and 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  417 

we  removed  them  with  our  tongues,  draining  the  am- 
brosial juice  with  each  morsel,  and  ate  twenty  or  thirty 
each.  The  fish  was  steeped  in  lime-juice,  not  cooked, 
and  flavored  with  the  cocoanut  sauce  and  wild  chillies. 
The  crayfish  were  curried  with  the  curry  plant  of  the 
mountains,  the  shrimp  were  eaten  raw  or  boiled,  and 
the  goldfish  were  baked. 

The  sucking  pig  and  fowl  had  been  baked  in  a  native 
unm,  or  oven,  on  hot  stones,  and  the  taro  and  yams 
steamed  with  them.  Taro  tops  were  served  with  cocoa- 
nut  cream.  One  was  not  compelled  by  any  absurd 
etiquette  to  choose  these  dishes  in  any  sequence.  My 
left-hand  neighbor  was  indifferent  in  choice,  and  ate 
everything  nearest  to  him  first,  and  without  order,  tak- 
ing feis  or  bananas  or  a  goldfish,  dozens  of  shrimps,  a 
few  prawns,  a  crayfish,  and  several  varos,  but  informing 
me,  with  a  caress  of  his  rounded  stomach,  that  he  was 
saving  most  of  his  hunger  for  the  chicken,  pig,  and  poi. 
He  was  a  Tahitian  of  middle  age,  with  a  beaming  face, 
and  happy  that  I  spoke  his  tongue.  When  the  pig 
and  poi  were  set  before  us,  he  devoured  large  quantities 
of  them.  The  poi  was  in  calabashes,  and  was  made  of 
ripe  breadfruit  pounded  until  dough  with  a  stone  pestle 
in  a  wooden  trough,  then  baked  in  leaves  in  the  ground, 
and,  when  cooked,  mixed  with  water  and  beaten  and 
stirred  until  a  mass  of  the  consistency  of  a  glutinous 
custard.  He  and  I  shared  a  calabash,  and  his  adroit- 
ness contrasted  with  my  inexperience  in  taking  the  poi 
to  our  mouths.  He  dipped  his  forefinger  into  the  poif 
and  withdrew  it  covered  with  the  paste,  twirled  it  three 
times  and  gave  it  a  fillip,  which  left  no  remnant  to  dangle 


418  MYSTIC  ISLES 

when  the  index  was  neatly  cleaned  between  his  lips. 
Custom  was  to  lave  the  finger  in  the  fresh-water  shell 
before  resuming  relations  with  the  poi. 

My  handsome  neighbor  ate  four  times  as  much  as  I, 
and  I  was  hungry.  His  appetite  was  not  unusual 
among  these  South  Sea  giants.  I  noticed  that  he  ate 
more  than  three  pounds  of  pig  and  a  quart  of  poi  after 
all  his  previous  devastation  of  shellfish,  feis,  chicken, 
and  taro,  besides  two  fish  as  big  as  both  my  hands.  My 
right-hand  neighbor  was  Mr.  Davey,  an  urbane  and  un- 
reserved American,  who  informed  me  in  a  breath  that 
he  was  a  dentist,  a  graduate  of  Harvard  University, 
seventy-two  years  old,  and  had  been  in  Tahiti  forty-two 
years.  He  called  his  granddaughter  of  eighteen  to  meet 
me,  and  she  brought  her  infant.  Only  he  of  his  tribe 
could  speak  English,  but  she  talked  gaily  in  French. 

He  practised  his  profession,  he  said,  but  with  some 
difficulty,  as  the  eminent  Acting- Consul  Williams  had 
by  law  a  monopoly  of  dentistry  in  the  French  possessions 
in  the  South  Seas.  The  monopoly  had  been  certified  to 
by  the  courts  after  a  controversy  between  them,  but  his 
Honor  Willi  did  not  enforce  the  prohibition  except  as 
to  Papeete,  and  besides  was  very  rich,  and  had  more 
patients  than  he  could  possibly  attend. 

At  the  lower  end  of  the  mats  the  bachelors  sat, — 
there  were  only  three  whites  at  the  feast, — and  merri- 
ment had  its  home  there.  After  the  first  onslaught, 
the  vintages  of  Bordeaux  and  of  the  Rhineland,  and 
the  brews  of  Munich  and  Milwaukee  shared  attention 
with  the  viands.  The  head  of  the  mats  had  a  sedate 
atmosphere,  because  of  the  several  preachers  there,  and 
those  Tahitians  ambitious  to  shine  in  a  diaconal  way 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  419 

talked  seriously  of  the  problems  of  the  church,  of  future 
himenes,  and  the  waywardness  of  those  who  "knew  not 
the  fear  of  letu-Kirito."  Their  indications  of  grief  at 
the  hardness  of  the  heathens'  hearts  grew  more  lively 
as  they  sipped  the  wine,  thinking  perhaps  of  that  day 
when  the  Master  and  the  disciples  did  the  same  at  an- 
other wedding  feast. 

Soon  their  voices  were  drowned  by  the  low  notes  of 
an  accordion  and  the  chanting  by  the  bachelors  of  an 
ancient  love-song  of  Tahiti.  Miri  and  Caroline  and 
Maraa,  being  of  Mataiea,  had  returned  for  this  arearea, 
and  were  seated  with  the  young  men.  The  Tahitians 
are  charitable  in  their  regard  of  very  open  peccadilloes, 
especially  those  animated  by  passion  or  a  desire  for 
amusement,  thinking  probably  that  were  stones  to  be 
thrown  only  by  the  guiltless,  there  would  be  none  to 
lift  one;  certainly  no  white  in  Tahiti.  The  dithyramb 
of  a  bacchanal  sounded,  and  the  outlaw  dentist  was  re- 
minded of  his  former  intimate  friend,  King  Pomare  the 
Fifth. 

"I  was  a  bosom  chum  of  the  king,"  he  said  confiden- 
tially as  he  poured  me  a  shell  of  Burgundy.  "He  was 
much  maligned.  He  drank  too  much  for  his  health, 
but  so  do  almost  all  kings,  from  what  I  've  read  and 
seen.  Lord !  what  a  man  he  was !  He  'd  sit  around  all 
night  while  the  hula  boomed,  applauding  this  or  that 
dancer,  and  seeing  that  the  booze  circulated.  He  was 
a  fish,  that 's  a  fact.  He  never  had  enough,  and  he 
could  stow  away  a  cask.  Good-hearted!  When  he 
would  go  to  the  districts  he  always  sent  word  when  he 
had  laid  out  his  course,  and  after  a  few  days  in  each 
place  he  wrould  go  on  with  his  crowd.  He  paid  for 


420  MYSTIC  ISLES 

everything  except,  of  course,  gifts  of  fruit  and  fish. 
Every  night  there  would  be  a  big  time,  dancing  and 
drinking.  Jiminy!  But  times  were  different  then. 
Look  at  me!  I  Ye  lived  freely  all  my  life,  and  I  am 
over  forty  years  here,  but  you  would  n't  know  I  was  past 
seventy.  It 's  the  climate  and  not  worrying  or  being 
worried  about  clothes  or  sin." 

The  bride  had  long  since  left  the  table,  removed  her 
shoes,  and  put  on  a  Mother  Hubbard  gown.  She  and 
her  mother  I  saw  having  a  bite  together  in  private  com- 
fort. 

There  were  many  speeches  by  Tahitians,  most  of  them 
long,  and  some  referring  to  the  happy  couple  and  their 
progeny  in  the  quaint  way  of  the  medieval  French  in 
the  chamber  scenes  after  marriage,  as  related  in  story 
and  drama.  The  pastors  depressed  their  mouths,  the 
deacons  filled  theirs  with  food  to  stifle  their  laughter, 
and  the  groom  was  the  subject  of  flattering  raillery. 
The  women  did  not  sit  down,  because  mostly  occupied  in 
the  service;  but  the  hetairce,  Miri,  Caroline,  and  Maraa, 
entertained  the  bachelors  without  criticism  or  competi- 
tion. The  Tahitian  women  had  no  jealousy  of  these 
wantons,  or,  at  least,  no  condemnation  of  them.  They 
have  always  had  the  place  in  Polynesia  that  certain  an- 
cient nations  gave  them,  half  admired  and  half  tolerated. 
They  had  official  note  once  a  year  when  the  most  skilful 
of  them  received  the  government  cachet  for  excellence 
in  dances  before  the  governor  and  his  cabinet  celebrat- 
ing the  fall  of  the  Bastile.  They  became  quite  as  well 
known  in  their  country  by  their  performance  on  those 
festal  days  as  our  greatest  dancers  or  actresses. 

When  the  mats  became  deserted,  and  the  pastors  had 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  421 

taken  their  carts  for  their  homes,  a  little  elated  but  still 
quoting  holy  writ,  the  nymphs  and  a  dozen  other  girls 
of  seething  mirth  took  possession  of  the  temple  with  a 
score  of  young  men,  and  sang  their  love-songs  and  set 
the  words  to  gesture  and  somatic  harmony.  Brooke 
and  I  lay  and  mused  as  we  listened  and  gazed.  When 
a  youth  crowned  with  ferns  hegan  to  play  a  series  of 
flageolets  with  his  nose,  the  poet  put  his  foot  on  mine. 

"We  are  on  Mount  Parnassus,"  he  whispered.  "The 
women  in  faun  skins  will  enter  in  a  moment,  swinging 
the  thyrsus  and  beating  the  cymbals.  Pan  peeps  from 
behind  that  palm.  Those  are  his  pipes,  as  sure  as  Linus 
went  to  the  dogs." 

I  met  others  of  the  royal  family  than  the  former  queen, 
Marao,  and  her  daughters,  the  Princesses  Tekau  and 
Boots,  at  an  amuraa  maa  given  at  the  mansion  of  Tetu- 
anui.  The  preparations  occupied  several  days,  and  we 
all  assisted  in  the  hunt  for  the  oysters,  shrimp,  crabs, 
mao,  and  fish,  going  by  twos  and  threes  to  the  lagoon, 
the  reef,  the  stream,  and  the  hills  for  their  rarest  titbits. 
The  pigs  and  fowl  were  out  of  the  earth  by  the  day  of 
the  feast,  and  Haamoura  and  Tatini  set  the  table,  a 
real  one  on  legs.  The  veranda  was  elegantly  decorated 
with  palms,  but  the  table  was  below  stairs  in  the  cooler, 
darker,  unwalled  rooms,  on  the  black  pebbles  brought 
from  a  far-away  beach.  The  pillars  of  the  house  were 
hung  with  banana-leaves  and  ferns,  but  the  atmosphere 
was  not  vividly  gay  because  of  the  high  estate  and  age  of 
Tetuanui  and  his  visitors. 

The  company  arrived  in  automobiles,  conspicuous 
among  them  Hinoe  Pomare,  the  big  hobbledehoy  son  of 
Prince  Hinoe,  and,  next  to  his  father,  heir  to  the  throne. 


422  MYSTIC  ISLES 

With  him  was  his  sister,  Tetuanui,  who  was  departing 
for  Raratonga,  and  her  husband.  He  was  a  brother  of 
Cowan,  the  prize-fighter,  and  in  their  honor  was  the 
luncheon.  Introduced  to  all  by  the  chief  of  Mataiea,  I 
was  asked  to  sit  with  them.  The  group  was  extraor- 
dinarily interesting,  for  besides  the  prince's  heir  and 
his  sister,  Chief  Tetuanui,  and  his  brother-in-law  Charlie 
Ling,  was  Paraita,  son  of  a  German  schooner  captain, 
who  was  adopted  by  Pomare  V,  and  Tinau,  another 
adopted  son  of  the  late  king,  who  owned,  and  ran  for 
hire,  a  motor-car.  There  were  other  men,  but  among 
the  women,  all  of  whom  sat  below  the  humblest  man, 
myself,  was  the  Princesse  de  Joinville  of  Moorea,  mother 
of  Prince  Hinoe,  and  grandmother  of  the  youth  at  the 
head  of  the  table,  and  of  the  boy,  Ariipae,  who  attended 
to  the  chief's  garden. 

This  grandmother,  known  as  Vahinetua  Roriarii,  was 
one  of  the  very  last  survivors  among  the  notable  figures 
of  the  kingdom.  She  had  a  cigarette  in  the  corner  of 
her  sunken  mouth,  but  she  tossed  it  away  when  she  and 
Haamoura,  the  chief's  wife,  kissed  each  other  on  both 
cheeks  in  the  French  way.  The  Princesse  de  Joinville 
was  tottering,  but  with  something  in  her  face,  a  disdain, 
a  trace  of  power,  that  attracted  me  before  I  knew  her 
rank  or  history.  Her  once  raven  hair  was  streaked 
with  gray,  she  trembled,  and  her  step  was  feeble;  but 
all  her  weaknesses  and  blemishes  impressed  me  as  the 
disfigurement  by  age  and  abrasion  of  a  beautiful  and 
noble  statue.  She  was  more  savage-looking  than  any 
modern  Tahitian  woman,  more  aboriginal,  and  yet  more 
subtle.  I  once  contemplated  in  the  jungle  of  Johore 
an  old  tigress  just  trapped,  but  marked  and  wounded 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  423 

by  the  pit  and  the  blows  of  her  captors.  She  looked 
at  me  coolly,  but  with  a  glint  in  her  eye  that  meant,  I 
thought,  contempt  for  all  that  had  occurred  since  her 
last  hour  of  freedom. 

In  the  curious  network  of  lines  all  over  the  worn  face 
of  the  princess  there  were  suggestions  of  the  sensual 
lure  that  had  made  her  the  mistress  of  the  court;  a 
gentle  but  pitiful  droop  to  the  mouth  that  I  had  no- 
ticed persisting  in  the  roues  and  sirens  of  Asia  after 
senility  had  struck  away  all  charm.  The  princess  re- 
fused a  third  glass  of  wine  at  the  table,  but  smoked 
incessantly,  and  listened  absent-mindedly  to  the  music 
and  the  songs.  Her  thoughts  may  have  been  of  those 
mad  nights  of  orgy  which  Davey,  the  dentist,  and 
Brault,  the  composer,  had  described.  Her  cigarettes 
were  of  native  tobacco  wrapped  in  pandanus  leaf,  as 
the  South  American  wraps  his  in  corn  husk.  They  were 
short;  merely  a  few  puffs. 

Afa,  the  tane  of  the  lovely  Evoa  of  the  Annexe, 
brought  to  the  luncheon  Annabelle  Lee,  the  buxom  wife 
of  Lovaina's  negro  chauffeur.  She  was  a  quadroon,  a 
belle  of  dark  Kentucky,  with  more  than  a  touch  of  the 
tar-brush  in  her  skin  and  hair,  and  her  gaudy  clothes  and 
friendly  manner  had  won  the  Tahitians  completely. 
She  was  receiving  much  attention  wherever  she  went  in 
Tahiti,  for  she  had  the  fashion  and  language  and  man- 
ners of  the  whites,  as  they  knew  them,  and  yet  was 
plainly  of  the  colored  races.  The  chauffeur  himself,  a 
self-respecting  negro,  had  sat  at  table  with  Lovaina 
many  times.  There  was  in  Tahiti  no  color-line.  In 
America  a  man  with  a  drop  of  colored  blood  in  his  veins 
is  classed  as  a  colored  man;  in  Cuba  a  drop  of  white 


424  MYSTIC  ISLES 

blood  makes  him  a  white  man.  The  whites  honor  their 
own  pigment  in  all  South  America,  but  in  the  United 
States  count  the  negro  blood  as  more  important.  In 
Tahiti  all  were  color-blind. 

The  amuraa  maa  was  over  in  a  few  hours.  There 
were  no  speeches,  but  much  laughter,  and  much  singing 
of  the  himene  written  by  the  king,  "E  maururu  a  van!" 

The  tune  was  an  old  English  hymn,  but  those  were 
all  the  words  of  the  song,  and  they  meant,  "I  am  so 
happy!"  They  were  verses  worthy  of  monarchy  any- 
where, and  equaled  the  favorite  of  great  political  gath- 
erings in  America,  "We're  here  because  we're  here!" 

"When  I  was  made  chief  of  Mataiea,"  said  Tetuanui, 
reminiscently  to  me  as  we  sang,  "I  went,  as  was  the 
custom,  to  Papeete  to  drink  with  the  king.  He  had 
just  fallen  down  a  stairway  while  drunk,  and  injured 
himself  severely,  so  that  our  official  drinking  was  lim- 
ited. He  hated  stairs,  anyhow,  but  his  trouble  was 
that  he  mixed  his  drinks.  That  is  suicidal.  He  would 
empty  into  a  very  large  punch-bowl  champagne,  beer, 
absinthe,  claret,  whisky  and  any  other  boissons,  and 
drink  the  compound  from  a  goblet.  He  could  hold 
gallons.  He  was  dead  in  two  weeks  after  I  had  my 
chiefly  toasts  with  him.  His  body  was  like  an  old  cala- 
bash in  which  you  have  kept  liquor  for  a  quarter  of  a 
century.  We  had  no  alcohol  until  the  whites  brought 
it."  Tetuanui  ended  with  a  line  of  Brault's  song  about 
Pomare :  "Puisqu'il  est  mort  .  .  .  N'en  parlous  plus!" 

Mataiea  was  the  farthest  point  on  Tahiti  from  Papeete 
I  had  reached,  and  wishing  to  see  more  of  the  island,  I 
set  out  on  foot  with  Tatini,  my  handmaid.  We  bade 
good-bye  to  Tetuanui  and  Haamoura  and  all  the  family 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  425 

after  the  dawn  breakfast.  Mama  Tetuanui  cried  a  few 
moments  from  the  pangs  of  separation,  and  the  chief 
wrung  my  hand  sorrowfully,  though  I  was  to  be  back 
in  a  few  days. 

From  the  reef  at  Mataiea  I  had  glimpsed  the  south- 
west of  Tahiti,  the  lower  edge  of  the  handle  of  the  fan- 
shaped  double  isle,  mountainous  and  abrupt  in  form, 
and  called  commonly  the  presquile  de  Taiarapu.  The 
chief  said  that  at  the  isthmus  of  Taravao,  the  junction 
of  the  fan  and  handle,  there  was  the  Maison  des  Varos, 
a  famous  roadhouse,  kept  by  M.  Butscher,  where  one 
might  have  the  best  food  in  Tahiti  if  one  notified  the 
host  in  advance. 

"One  must  wake  him  up,"  said  Tetuanui.  "He  is 
asleep  most  of  the  time." 

I  wrote  him  a  letter,  and  on  the  day  appointed,  Tatini 
and  I,  barefooted,  started.  We  went  through  Tetu- 
anui's  breadfruit-grove,  and  there,  as  wherever  were 
choice  growths,  I  stopped  to  examine  and  admire.  No 
other  tree  except  the  cocoa  equals  the  maori  in  useful- 
ness and  beauty.  The  cocoa  will  grow  almost  in  the 
sea  and  in  any  soil,  but  the  breadfruit  demands  humus 
and  a  slight  attention.  The  cocoas  flourish  on  hundreds 
of  atolls  where  man  never  sees  them,  but  the  maoris  ask 
a  clearing  of  the  jungle  about  their  feet.  The  timber 
of  the  breadfruit  is  excellent  for  canoes  and  for  lumber, 
and  its  leaves,  thick  and  glossy,  and  eighteen  inches 
long  by  a  foot  broad,  are  of  account  for  many  purposes, 
including  thatch  and  plates.  There  are  half  a  hundred 
varieties,  and  each  tree  furnishes  three  or  four  crops  a 
year,  hundreds  of  fruits  as  big  and  round  as  plum-pud- 
dings, green  or  yellow  on  the  tree,  pitted  regularly  like  a 


426  MYSTIC  ISLES 

golf-ball,  in  lozenge-shaped  patterns.  The  bark  of  the 
young  branches  was  used  for  making  a  tough  tapa,  na~ 
tive  cloth,  and  resin  furnishes  a  glue  for  calking  water- 
craft.  The  tree  bears  in  the  second  or  third  year,  is 
hardy,  but  yields  its  life  to  a  fungus,  for  which  there  is 
no  remedy  except,  according  to  the  natives,  a  lovely  lily 
that  grows  in  the  forest.  Transplanted,  at  the  roots  of 
the  maori,  the  lily  heals  its  disease  and  drives  away  the 
parasite.  The  missionaries  cited  this  as  a  parable  of 
Christianity,  which  would  save  from  damnation  the  con* 
vert  no  matter  how  fungusy  he  was  with  sin.  In  tribal 
wars  the  enemy  laid  a  sea-slug  at  the  heart  of  the  maori, 
and,  its  foe  unseen,  the  tree  perished  from  the  corruption 
of  the  hideous  trepang. 

Papeari,  the  next  district  west  of  Mataiea,  was  well 
watered,  as  its  name  signified,  and  we  passed  cows  and 
sheep  and  horses  grazing  under  the  trees  or  in  pastures 
of  lush  grass.  Swamps  had  been  ditched  and  drained, 
and  there  was  evidence  of  unusual  energy  in  agriculture. 
The  country  gained  in  tropical  aspect  as  we  approached 
the  narrow  strip  of  land  which  is  the  nexus  of  Tahiti- 
nui  and  Tahiti-iti,  of  the  blade  and  the  handle  of  the  fan. 
Tahitian  mythology  does  not  agree  with  geology,  any 
more  than  does  the  catechism;  for  though  the  scientists 
aver  that  these  separate  isles  were  not  united  until  ages 
after  their  formation,  a  legend  ran  that  at  one  time  the 
union  was  complete,  but  that  a  sea-god  conceived  a 
hatred  for  the  inhabitants  of  the  Presqu'ile  of  Taiarapu, 
the  fearless  clans  of  the  Teva-i-tai  and  the  Te-Ahupo, 

One  very  dark  night  when  the  moon  was  in  the  ocean 
cavern  of  this  evil  Atua,  he  began  his  horrid  labors  to 
sever  the  tie.  He  smote  the  rocks  from  the  foundations, 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  427 

and  the  people  heard  in  terror  throughout  the  night  the 
thunders  of  his  blows.  He  had  almost  achieved  his  task 
when  the  goodly  sun-god  appeared  over  the  mountains 
far  in  advance  of  his  usual  time,  and  blinded  the  Titan 
so  that  he  sought  safety  beneath  the  ocean.  Tatini 
showed  me  the  fearful  signs  of  the  demon's  fury.  Mon- 
strous masses  of  rock  were  in  the  sea,  and  the  isthmus 
was  reduced  to  a  mere  mile  of  width,  an  extensive  bay 
filling  the  demolished  area.  The  deep  inlet  of  Port 
Phaeton  swept  in  there  like  the  Gulf  of  Corinth  in 
Greece.  All  this  peninsula  of  Taiarapu  was  ceded  to 
Captain  Cook.  He  called  it  Tiaraboo  in  his  journal, 
but  he  never  took  possession  of  his  principality,  realizing 
that  the  cession  was  in  the  fashion  of  the  Spaniard  who 
says,  "All  I  have  is  yours,"  but  would  think  you  un- 
mannerly to  carry  away  anything  of  value. 

Port  Phaeton  is  famed  in  the  annals  of  the  early 
French  conquerors,  for  in  it  they  anchored  their  war- 
ships, and  the  Paris  chauvinists  dreamed  of  a  navy-yard 
and  a  large  settlement  there.  On  the  plateau  of  Tar- 
avao,  a  hilltop  raised  fifty  feet,  is  an  old  fort  of  the 
French,  a  solid  construction  against  the  stubborn  Tahi- 
tians  whom  they  insisted,  with  cannon  and  musket,  must 
receive  Christianity  through  the  French  clergy  of  the 
Order  of  the  Sacred  Heart  of  Jesus  instead  of  through 
English  dissenters.  From  the  plateau  we  could  see  the 
immense  extent  of  the  forests,  which  rose  almost  from 
the  water  to  the  tops  of  the  mountains. 

A  dozen  magnificent  kinds  of  trees  were  all  about  us. 
The  earth  wore  a  verdant  coat  of  grass,  ferns,  and  vines, 
so  profuse  and  bright  that  by  contrast  a  remembrance 
of  the  barren  parts  of  America  crossed  my  mind,  with 


428  MYSTIC  ISLES 

the  fulsome  praise  of  them  by  the  pious  thieves  of  that 
region  who  sell  them.  It  would  be  impossible  and  cruel, 
I  reflected,  to  convey  to  those  extravagants  in  adjectives 
the  richness  of  herbage  and  the  brilliancy  of  scene  about 
the  isthmus.  The  vegetation  was  ampler  than  anywhere 
else  in  Tahiti. 

The  tamann-,  the  hotu-,  and  the  mape-trees  were  in 
abundance.  The  tamanu  yields  tacamac,  a  yellow,  res- 
inous substance  with  a  strong  odor  and  a  bitter,  aromatic 
taste,  that  is  used  as  incense  and  in  ointments.  The 
Tahitians  call  the  tamanu  the  healing- tree.  It  grows 
just  above  high  water  on  any  kind  of  shore,  embowering, 
with  dark  foliage,  and  peculiarly  easeful  in  midday  on 
the  hot  sands.  I  have  had  a  tamanu-lea.f  soaked  in  fresh 
water  laid  upon  my  eye  inflamed  by  too  long  a  vigil  in 
the  sun  on  the  reef.  The  small  gray  ball  within  its 
round  green  fruit  affords  a  greenish  oil  that  is  a  liniment 
of  wizardry  for  bruises,  stiffness,  rheumatism,  and  fevers. 
In  every  house  was  a  gourd  stored  with  it. 

The  mape,  the  Tahitian  chestnut,  grew  farther  from 
the  water,  a  powerful,  commanding  figure,  with  flowers 
of  sublimated  sweetness,  and  with  it  the  tiairi,  or  tutui- 
tree,  covered  with  blossoms,  like  white  lilac,  and  bearing 
nuts  with  oily  kernels.  It  is  the  candlenut-tree,  which 
has  furnished  lights  for  Tahitians  since  they  wandered 
to  these  latitudes.  The  nuts  are  baked  to  make  brittle 
their  shell,  and  the  kernels  of  walnut  size  easily  extracted 
and  pierced.  Strung  on  the  midrib  of  a  palm-leaf;  the 
combination  makes  wax  and  wick,  and  has  lighted  many 
a  council  and  many  a  dance  in  Polynesia. 

The  pandanus  likes  the  coral  sand,  and  is  in  appear- 
ance a  tree  out  of  a  dream.  It  grows  twenty  feet  high 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  429 

and  stands  on  aerial  roots  resembling  inclined  stilts. 
The  leaves  are  in  tufts  at  the  tips  of  the  branches,  set 
like  a  screw,  twisting  around  the  stem  in  graceful  curves, 
and  marking  the  stem  with  a  spiral  pattern  from  the 
root  upward.  The  leaves  are  edged  with  spines.  The 
wood  is  close,  hard,  and  hollow,  and  full  of  oil.  From 
the  pandanus  are  made  posts  five  or  six  inches  through. 
The  leaves,  four  or  five  feet  long,  are  torn  into  strips 
for  making  hats,  thatch,  mats,  and  canoe  sails.  They 
are  steeped  in  sea-water,  and  beaten  with  a  mallet  to 
remove  the  green  outer  skin,  the  residue  being  white, 
silken  fiber.  This  is  dyed  to  weave  hats  and  belts.  The 
aerial  roots  are  crushed  to  make  a  tougher  fiber  for  ropes, 
baskets,  and  mats.  The  fruit  is  something  like  a  coarse 
pineapple,  and  the  blossoms  are  very  fragrant.  The 
ripe  fruit  is  crimson,  and  strings  like  beads  into  favorite 
necklaces.  The  fruit  separates  into  cones,  and  one 
chews  the  inner  end  like  licorice,  while,  when  dried,  the 
kernels  can  be  ground  into  a  brown,  sweet  flour  for 
cakes,  a  wholesome,  nourishing  food,  but  esteemed  only 
in  more  barren  islands,  where  fish  and  cocoanuts  are 
the  principal  diet.  From  the  fruit  is  distilled  a  fiery 
liquor  that  the  early  whalers  taught  the  line  islanders 
to  drink. 

At  the  isthmus  was  the  only  crossing  of  the  belt  or, 
Broom  Road,  about  Tahiti.  One  had  to  choose  the  left 
or  the  right,  and  we  wound  to  the  right  to  reach  the 
Maison  dcs  Varos.  To  the  left  we  could  have  gone 
to  Tautira,  famous  as  the  last  stand  of  the  god  Oro 
against  the  cross,  and  still  under  the  chieftaincy  of  Ori- 
a-Ori,  with  whom  R.  L.  S.  and  his  family  lived  several 
months. 


430  MYSTIC  ISLES 

The  road  was  a  fairy-tale  brightly  illuminated  by 
plantation,  jungle,  and  garden,  by  reef  and  eyot.  The 
sea  lapped  gently  on  sand  as  white  as  the  fleecy  clouds. 
Carts  of  Chinese  and  Tahitians  passed,  carrying  their 
owners  and  produce.  The  Chinese  said,  "Yulanna!"  for 
fcj.a  ora  nal"  and  the  natives  called  to  us  to  eat  with  them 
in  their  near-by  homes.  But  we  walked  on,  saying,  efUa 
maururu!"  "Much  obliged!" 

M.  Butscher  had  a  good-sized,  rambling  house,  with 
verandas  for  dining,  and  bedrooms  for  sleep.  We 
found  him  on  his  largest  table,  lying  flat  on  his  back, 
and  contemplating,  in  the  eternal  and  perplexing  way 
of  the  Polynesians.  The  Daibutsu,  the  great  Buddha 
of  Kamakura,  had  no  more  peaceful,  meditative  aspect 
than  had  the  Taravao  taverner.  He  was  long  and 
meager,  as  dry  as  a  cocoanut  from  the  copra  oven,  as 
if  all  the  juices  of  his  body  and  soul  had  been  expressed 
in  his  years  of  cooking  the  sea-centipedes  for  which  he 
was  celebrated.  Tatini  addressed  him  slowly:  "Boc- 
sliair}  ia  ora  nal" 

He  sat  up  stiffly,  and  regarded  us  with  indifference. 
He  was  cast  for  an  old  and  withered  Mephistopheles, 
his  lines  all  downward,  his  few  teeth  fangs,  and  his  smile 
a  threatening  leer,  as  if  he  thought  of  a  joke  he  could 
not  tell  to  decent  visitors,  but  which  almost  choked  him 
to  withhold.  His  clothes  were  rags,  and  his  naked  feet 
like  the  flippers  of  seals.  He  opened  his  mouth,  yawned, 
and  said,  "liii"  a  word  which  means,  "I  slept  with  my 
eyes  open." 

He  settled  back  upon  the  table,  and  became  immersed 
again  in  reverie.  On  the  floor  by  the  kitchen  was  a 
Tahitian  woman  with  a  baby  and  a  pandanus-basket  of 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  431 

varos.  They  squirmed  and  wriggled,  contorted  and 
crackled  like  giant  thousand-legs,  and  almost  excited  in 
me  a  repulsion. 

The  ralune  laughed  at  me. 

"I  fished  for  them  with  a  dozen  grapnels,"  she  said. 
"It  was  good  fishing  to-day.  I  put  a  piece  of  fish  on 
each  group  of  hooks.  You  know  those  holes  are  very 
small  at  the  top  and  under  two  or  three  feet  of  water. 
Xot  many  know  how  to  find  them.  I  set  a  grapnel  in 
each  hole,  and  then  returned  to  the  first  to  pull  out  the 
raro.  I  have  more  than  twenty  here." 

Butscher  rose,  and  sluggishly  began  to  prepare  the 
breakfast.  He  wrapped  the  varos  in  hotu-leaves,  and 
put  them  in  the  wnu  to  steam  on  the  red-hot  stones,  and 
began  to  open  oysters  and  fry  fish  in  brown  butter,  as 
Tatini  and  I  hastened  to  the  beach  for  a  bath.  The  sea 
ivas  studded  with  coral  growth,  and  sponges  by  the  thou- 
sand, and  we  sat  on  these  soft  cushions  under  the  sur- 
face, and  watched  the  little  fishes'  antics,  and  chatted. 
Tatini  had  gathered  half  a  dozen  nono*  a  fruit  that  has 
a  smooth  skin  and  no  stone,  and  she  threw  them  at  me. 

"Do  you  know  about  the  nono?"  she  asked  merrily. 
"It  was  in  our  courtship.  When  a  crowd  of  young  men 
were  gathered  to  bathe  in  the  pools  or  to  lie  on  the  banks 
under  the  shade  of  the  trees,  suddenly  a  missile  struck 
one  of  them  on  the  shoulder.  The  others  began  to  shout 
at  him  and  to  sing,  for  it  was  a  sign  that  a  rah  hie  had 
chosen  him.  He  jumped  to  his  feet  and  ran  in  the  di- 
rection of  the  hidden  thrower,  and  she  ran,  too,  but  no 
farther  than  away  from  the  eyes  of  the  others." 

"Tatini,"  I  said,  "the  nono  was  the  Tahitian  arrow 
of  a  little  fat  god  we  have  called  Cupid." 


432  MYSTIC  ISLES 

"Aue!"  she  replied.  "It  was  not  always  oaoa  for  him, 
because  it  might  be  an  old  woman,  or  some  one  he  did 
not  like,  but  who  loved  him.  The  Arii,  the  aristocratic 
ladies,  no  matter  how  old,  threw  nono  at  the  youngest 
and  handsomest  youth,  and  they  had  to  pursue  them, 
because  of  good  manners.  You  know,  Maru,  that  an 
illegitimate  child  is  called  to-day  taoranono,  and  taora 
means  to  throw." 

"When  I  was  in  Hawaii,"  I  told  her,  "the  old  natives 
used  to  talk  of  a  game  there  which,  under  King  Kal- 
akaua,  their  next  to  last  sovereign,  was  played  at  night 
in  lolani  palace  or  in  the  garden,  but  a  ball  of  twine  took 
the  place  of  the  nono,  and  all  stood  about,  men  and 
women,  in  a  circle,  to  speed  and  receive  the  token  of 
passion.  The  missionaries  severely  condemned  the 
game." 

At  the  Maison  des  varos  I  breakfasted  alone,  for 
Tatini  was  too  shy  to  break  the  taboo  that  separated  the 
sexes  at  meals.  Butscher  waited  on  me,  bringing  one 
plate  of  ambrosia  after  another — oysters,  shrimp,  varos, 
and  fish.  I  warmed  his  frigid  blood  with  a  cup  or  two 
of  Pol  Roger,  1905,  a  bottle  of  which  he  dragged  from 
a  cave. 

"I  am  born  in  Papenoo,"  he  volunteered,  "fifty-three 
years  ago.  My  father  came  from  Alsace  seventy-five 
years  ago,  when  Tahiti  had  not  many  white  people.  I 
am  a  tinsmith,  but  I  gave  up  that  business  many  years 
ago  to  keep  this  maison.  I  was  a  catechist  in  the  Cath- 
olic church  here  nine  years,  teaching  the  ignorant.  I 
gave  it  up ;  it  did  n't  pay.  I  got  nothing  out  of  it.  I 
worked  about  the  church,  read  the  prayers,  and  led  the 
service  when  the  priest  was  not  there,  and  I  never  made 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  433 

a  penny.  Everything  for  me  was  the  future  life.  Vous 
savez,  monsieur,  toute  a  Vavenir!  Sacre!  what  a  fool 
I  was!  Mais,  one  day  when  I  was  lying  on  that  table 
as  you  found  me,  I  was  iiii,  and  I  dreamed  that  there 
was  no  hell  and  that  I  was  a  fool.  I  turned  over  a  new 
leaf  that  moment.  Xow  I  never  go  near  the  church,  and 
the  future  can  take  care  of  itself.  That 's  my  son-in-law 
going  by  in  the  cart.  He  's  the  richest  young  man  in 
Taravao.  Ah,  out!  he  '11  spend  a  hundred  francs  here 
with  me  in  a  week  for  drinks.  That 's  their  baby." 

Butscher's  leathern,  yellow  visage  contracted  in  an 
appalling  grin. 

"They  have  been  married  long?"  I  remarked  politely. 

"Mais,  they  are  not  married  yet,"  replied  the  father- 
in-law.  "There  is  no  hurry." 

Leaving  Tatini  to  her  own  pleasures,  I  rented  a  horse 
and  cart  of  Mephistopheles  and  drove  into  the  district 
of  Vairao.  From  the  outset  I  realized  the  iniquitous 
character  of  the  Atua  who  had  tried  to  destroy  or  set 
adrift  the  people  of  the  presqu'ile  of  Taiarapu,  for  they 
were  handsomer  and,  if  possible,  more  hospitable  than 
those  of  Tahiti-nui.  The  road  was  closer  to  the  water 
of  the  lagoon,  and  the  reef  and  coral  banks  were  nearer. 
I  allowed  the  horse  to  go  his  own  gait,  and  we  jogged 
slowly,  stopping  to  browse  and  to  consider  the  land- 
scape. The  beach  was  covered  with  seeds  and  pods, 
the  square-shaped  seeds  of  the  Barringtonia  in  their 
outer  case  of  fiber,  tutui-mits,  cocoanuts,  flowers  and 
bits  of  wood,  and  objects  that  would  cause  a  naturalist 
to  weep  for  lack  of  time.  Our  beaches  of  the  temperate 
zones  are  wastes  compared  with  these,  for  not  only  were 
the  sands  strewn  with  a  vast  debris  of  forest  and  jungle, 


434  MYSTIC  ISLES 

but  animal  life  abounded.  The  hermits  toddled  about, 
carrying  their  stolen  shells,  some  as  small  as  watch 
charms,  and  the  land-crabs  fed  on  the  pur  an  and  hibiscus- 
leaves.  They  are  the  scavengers  of  the  shore,  eating 
everything,  and  thus  acting  as  conservators  of  health, 
as  do  the  lank  pigs  of  the  Philippines.  They  were 
in  myriads,  rushing  about  seemingly  without  purpose, 
and  diving  into  their  holes  beneath  the  palm-roots. 
Their  legs,  unshelled,  are  as  excellent  food  as  the  crabs 
of  the  Atlantic.  In  the  water  a  foot  or  two  away  moved 
exquisite  creatures,  darting  fish,  and  sailing  craft — 
Portuguese  men-of-war,  and  other  almost  intangible 
shapes  of  pearly  hue. 

The  village  of  Vaieri  is  opposite  the  pass  of  Tapuae- 
raha.  Far  from  the  capital,  and  from  the  distractions 
of  tourists  and  bureaucracy,  this  tiny  group  of  homes 
along  the  beach  was  less  touched  by  the  altering  hand  of 
the  white  than  Mataiea,  its  setting  and  atmosphere  af- 
fectingly  unspoiled.  There  was  a  mildness,  a  reticence, 
a  privacy  surrounding  the  commune  that  bespoke  a 
gentle  people,  living  to  themselves.  It  was  almost  at 
the  end  of  the  belt  road,  which  virtually  terminated  at 
Puforatiai.  Gigantic  precipices,  high  cliffs,  and  rugged 
mountains  forbade  travel,  and  from  a  boat  only  could 
one  see  the  extreme  southern  end  of  Tahiti-nui  Marea- 
rea,  Great  Tahiti  the  Golden,  as  it  was  called  by  its 
once  proud  race. 

Vaieri  was  environed  by  all  the  plants  of  this  ciime. 
They  ran  along  the  road  and  embosomed  the  houses. 
Guavas  and  oranges  were  tangled  with  bananas,  roses, 
reeds,  papayas,  and  wild  coffee.  The  blue  duranta  and 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  435 

the  white  oleander,  the  cool  gray-green  hibiscus  with 
lemon-colored  blossoms,  the  yellow  allamanda,  the 
trumpet  lily,  acacias,  lilac  ipomaea,  tree  ferns,  and  huge 
bird's-nest  ferns  mingled  with  white  convolvulus,  and 
over  all  lifted  groves  of  cocoas  and  the  symmetrical 
breadfruit. 

In  this  surrounding  was  a  wooden  house,  built  partly 
over  the  water,  so  that  a  seaward  veranda  extended  into 
the  lagoon,  high  on  posts,  and  commanded  a  view  of  the 
sea  and  the  mountain.  I  saw  on  this  veranda  a  more 
arresting  figure  of  a  white  man  than  I  had  before  come 
upon  in  Tahiti.  His  body,  clothed  only  in  a  pareu, 
was  very  brown,  but  his  light  beard  and  blue  eyes  proved 
his  Xordic  strain.  He  was  of  medium  size,  powerful, 
with  muscles  rounded,  but  evident,  under  his  satin  skin, 
and  with  large  hands  and  feet.  He  was  reading  a  book, 
and  as  I  ambled  by,  he  raised  his  head  and  looked  at 
me  with  a  serious  smile. 

I  checked  the  horse,  and  tied  him  to  a  candlenut-tree. 
I  felt  that  I  had  arrived  at  the  end  of  my  journey. 

I  spent  the  remainder  of  the  day  and  the  night  there. 
The  man  and  his  wife  were  as  stars  on  a  black  night,  as 
music  to  a  blind  bard.  His  name  was  Nicolai  Lermon- 
toff,  born  in  Moscow,  and  his  wife  was  an  American, 
Alaska  her  place  of  birth,  and  of  residence  most  of  her 
life.  They  were  each  about  forty  years  old,  and  of  ex- 
traordinary ease  of  manner  and  felicity  of  expression. 

"3Iuy  simpatica"  had  said  the  old  Gipsy  at  the  Gen- 
eralife  in  Granada  when  I  had  spoken  bolee  with  him. 
Lermontoff  shook  hands  with  me.  His  was  as  hard  as 
leather,  calloused  as  a  sailor's  or  a  miner's,  and  so  con- 


436  MYSTIC  ISLES 

tradicted  his  balanced  head,  intellectual  face,  and  gen- 
eral air  of  knowledge  and  world  experience  that  I  said: 

"You  have  the  horniest  palm  in  Tahiti." 

"I  am  a  planter,"  he  replied.  "We  have  been  here 
a  few  years,  and  after  buying  the  ground  I  had  to  clear 
it,  because  it  had  been  permitted  to  go  to  bush.  There 
were  a  few  hundred  cocoanut-trees,  but  nothing  else 
worth  while.  I  began  at  the  highest  point  and  worked 
to  the  sea." 

I  drew  from  him  that  he  had  bought  eighteen  acres 
of  land  for  twelve  hundred  dollars,  and  had  spent  most 
of  a  year  in  preparing  it  for  vanilla,  cocoanuts,  a  few 
breadfruit,  a  small  area  of  coffee  and  taro,  and  a  vege- 
table patch. 

"We  have  very  little  money,"  he  explained,  "and  live 
largely  on  catches  in  the  sea  and  stream,  and  fruit  and 
vegetables,  with  a  dozen  chickens  for  eggs.  I  pull  at 
the  net  with  the  village.  Actually,  we  figure  that  fifteen 
dollars  a  month  covers  our  expenditures.  This  house 
cost  five  hundred  and  eight  dollars,  but,  of  course,  I 
did  a  lot  of  work  on  it.  The  chief  items  for  us  are 
books,  reviews,  and  postage." 

Three  walls  of  the  house  were  covered  with  books,  and 
the  fourth  stopped  at  the  floor  to  make  the  wide  veranda 
over  the  lagoon. 

Mrs.  Lermontoff  had  on  the  peignoir  of  the  natives, 
and  was  barefooted  within  the  house,  but  wore  sandals 
outside.  She  sat  before  a  sewing-machine. 

"I  am  making  a  gown  or  two  for  a  neighbor  who  is 
sick,"  she  said.  "I  do  not  give  many  hours  to  sewing. 
I  like  better  the  piano." 

She  knew  all  the  Russian  composers  well,  had  studied 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  437 

at  a  conservatory  in  the  German  capital,  and  she  also 
played  Grieg  for  me  with  much  feeling  and  a  strong, 
yet  delicate,  touch.  For  dinner  we  had  a  broiled  fish, 
which  I  myself  cooked  on  stones  outside  the  house,  and 
tuparo,  mountain  feis  steamed  and  mashed  into  a  golden 
pulp,  with  cocoanut  cream.  With  these  we  ate  boiled 
green  papaya,  which  tasted  like  vegetable  marrow;  and 
for  dessert  sweet  oranges  with  grated  fresh  cocoanut, 
and  for  drink,  the  wine  of  the  nut. 

After  the  food  we  sat  and  looked  at  the  reef,  the  pur- 
ple sea,  and  the  stars,  and  talked.  These  two  were 
weary  of  life  in  the  big  countries  of  the  world,  and  would 
rest  in  Tahiti.  If  they  made  enough  money,  they  would 
like  to  go  to  America  and  work  for  the  revolution  they 
hoped  for.  They  did  not  believe  in  bringing  it  about  by 
violence,  but  by  acting  on  the  Christ  principle,  as  they 
interpreted  it.  Yet  they  were  not  religionists. 

"Of  course  one  is  not  sure  of  the  aims  and  end  of  life," 
said  Lermontoff.  "I  have  no  greater  certainty  than  the 
kaisers  and  czars  or  your  great  men,  Morgan  and  Rocke- 
feller; but,  at  least,  theirs  are  not  worth  while  for  the 
race  of  man.  I  hold  that  man  is  the  greatest  product 
of  life  so  far,  and  not  government  or  trade.  That  the 
whirling  spheres  are  made  for  man  I  disbelieve,  but  on 
this  planet,  and  in  our  ken,  he  is  the  object  we  most 
prize,  and  rightfully.  Therefore  to  build  him  in  health 
and  character,  in  talent  and  happiness,  is  all  of  existence. 
The  life  after  death  we  are  not  sure  of,  but  beauty  is  on 
earth,  and  to  know  it  and  worship  it  in  nature,  and  in 
man  and  his  thoughts  and  deeds  are  our  ends.  The  in- 
dividual man  gains  only  by  sacrifice  for  his  fellows.  He 
must  give  freely  all  he  has.  This  is  his  only  way  out 


438  MYSTIC  ISLES 

of  the  shadow  that  may  be  inherent  in  our  growth,  but 
in  any  event  has  been  made  certain  by  machinery  and 
business  control  of  world  ethics." 

They  were  believers  in  the  doctrines  of  Leo  Tolstoi, 
and  especially  in  non-resistance,  and  the  possessing  little 
or  no  property  to  encumber  their  free  souls.  In  the 
village  they  had  become  the  guides  of  the  Tahitians  in 
the  devious  path  of  enforced  civilization. 

Mrs.  Lermontoff,  in  lamenting  the  Tahitian's  degra- 
dation, physical  and  spiritual,  said  that  she  was  re- 
minded always  of  the  Innuit,  the  Eskimo,  among  whom 
she  and  her  husband  had  passed  several  years. 

"They  are  the  most  ethical,  the  most  moral,  the  most 
communal  people  I  know  of,"  she  commented.  "They 
have  a  quality  of  soul  higher  than  that  of  any  other  race, 
a  quality  reached  by  their  slow  development  and  con- 
stant struggle.  I  imagine  they  went  through  a  terrible 
ordeal  in  the  more  temperate  zones  farther  south  before 
they  consented  to  be  pushed  into  the  frozen  lands  of 
Canada,  and  then,  following  the  caribou  in  the  summer, 
to  mush  to  the  Arctic  sea.  There,  while  they  had  to 
change  their  habits,  clothing  and  food,  to  learn  to  live  on 
the  seal  and  the  bear  and  the  caribou  in  the  midst  of  ice 
and  snow,  they  were  spared  for  thousands  of  years  the 
diseases  and  complexes  of  civilization,  and  reached  a 
culture  which  is  more  worth  while  than  ours." 

I  was  skeptical,  but  she  quoted  several  eminent  an- 
thropologists to  support  her  statement  that  the  Eskimo 
were  better  developed  mentally  than  other  people,  and 
that  in  simplicity  of  life,  honesty,  generosity,  provision 
for  the  young  and  the  old,  in  absence  of  brutality,  mur- 
der and  wars,  they  had  a  higher  system  of  philosophy 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  43< 

than  ours,  which  admits  hells,  prisons,  asylums,  pooi 
houses,  bagnios,  famines  and  wars,  and  fails  even  in  th< 
recurrent  periods  of  hard  times  to  provide  for  those 
stricken  by  their  lash. 

"But,"  said  Lermontoff,  "the  Innuit,  too,  is  corrupt- 
ing under  the  influence  of  trade,  of  alcohol,  and  the 
savage  lust  of  the  white  adventurer.  He  attained 
through  many  centuries,  perhaps  thousands  of  years,  of 
separation  from  other  peoples,  and  without  any  of  the 
softening  teachings  of  Christianity,  a  Jesus-like  code 
and  practice,  which  the  custodians  of  Christianity  have 
utterly  failed  to  impress  on  the  millions  of  their  normal 
adherents." 

I  looked  out  upon  the  reef  where  the  waves  gleamed 
faintly,  upon  the  scintillating  nearer  waters  of  the  la- 
goon, and  upon  us,  barefooted,  and  clothed  but  for  de- 
cency, and  I  had  to  jolt  my  brain  to  do  justice  to  the 
furred  and  booted  Eskimo  in  his  igloo  of  ice.  The  dif- 
ference in  surroundings  was  so  opposite  that  I  could 
barely  picture  his  atmosphere  climatological  and  moral, 
I  led  the  conversation  back  to  their  situation  in  Vaieri. 

He  had  planted  his  vanilla-vines  on  coffee-bushes,  the 
vanilla  being  an  orchid,  a  parasite,  that  creeps  over  the 
upstanding  plants,  coffee,  or  the  vermillion-tree.  Ler- 
montoff said  that  it  was  a  precarious  crop,  a  world  lux- 
ury, the  price  of  which  fluctuated  alarmingly.  Yet  it 
was  the  most  profitable  in  Tahiti,  which  produced  half 
of  all  the  vanilla-beans  in  the  world. 

This  man  and  woman  made  a  deep  impression  upon 
me.  They  had  seen  cities  everywhere,  had  had  position 
and  fashion,  and  were,  for  their  advanced  kind,  at  peace. 

"We  have  no  nerves  here,"  said  Mrs.  Lermontoff. 


440  MYSTIC  ISLES 

"Our  neighbors  are  all  fishermen,  and  we  are  friends. 
We  drink  no  wine,  we  want  no  tobacco.  We  have  health 
and  nature ;  books  and  music  supply  our  interests.  Life 
is  placid,  even  sweet." 

When  I  bade  them  good-by  it  was  with  regret.  They 
had  found  a  refuge,  and  they  had  love,  and  yet  they 
wanted  to  aid  in  the  revolution  they  believed  in.  I 
restrained  myself  from  pointing  out  that  Tolstoi,  at  the 
last,  forsook  even  his  family  to  seek  solitude  and  die. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

A  heathen  temple— The  great  Marae  of  Oberea— I  visit  it  with  Rupert 
Brooke  and  Chief  Tetuanui — The  Tahitian  religion  of  old — The  wisdom 
of  folly. 

READING  one  day  from  Captain  Cook's  Voy- 
ages about  a  heathen  temple  not  far  from 
Mataiea  which  Cook  had  visited,  I  suggested 
to  Brooke  that  we  go  to  it.  Xone  of  the  Tetuanui 
younger  folk  had  seen  it,  but  Haamoura  directed  us  to 
return  toward  Papara  as  far  as  the  thirty-ninth  kilo- 
meter-stone, and  to  strike  from  that  point  towards  the 
beach.  Cook  had  had  a  sincere  friendship,  if  not  a 
sweeter  sentiment,  for  Oberea,  the  high  chiefess  of  the 
clan  of  Tevas  at  Papara,  and  whom  at  first  he  thought 
queen  of  Tahiti.  He  described  her  as  "forty  years  of 
age,  her  figure  large  and  tall,  her  skin  white,  and  her 
eyes  with  great  expression."  That  handsome  lady  had 
led  him  a  merry  chase,  her  complacent  husband,  Oamo, 
abetting  her  in  the  manner  of  Polynesia,  where  women 
must  have  their  fling.  The  temple  Cook  and  his  offi- 
cers inspected  was  the  tribal  church  of  the  noble  pair. 
The  Voyages  say : 

The  morai  consisted  of  an  enormous  pile  of  stone  work, 
raised  in  the  form  of  a  pyramid  with  a  flight  of  steps  on  each 
side,  and  was  nearly  two  hundred  and  seventy  feet  long,  about 
one-third  as  wide,  and  between  forty  and  fifty  feet  high.  As 
the  Indians  were  totally  destitute  of  iron  utensils  to  shape  their 

stones,  as  well  as  mortar  to  cement  them  when  they  had  made 

441 


442  MYSTIC  ISLES 

them  fit  for  use,  a  structure  of  such  height  and  magnitude  must 
have  been  a  work  of  infinite  labor  and  fatigue.  In  the  center 
of  the  summit  was  the  representation  of  a  bird,  carved  in  wood ; 
close  to  this  was  the  figure  of  a  fish  which  was  in  stone.  This 
pyramid  made  part  of  one  side  of  a  wide  court  or  square,  the 
sides  of  which  were  nearly  equal;  the  whole  was  walled  in,  and 
paved  with  flat  stones. 

When  we  reached  the  thirty-ninth  kilometer-stone  we 
met  my  host,  Tetuanui,  in  his  one-horse  vehicle,  inspect- 
ing the  road.  He  agreed,  though  a  little  reluctantly, 
to  take  us  to  the  marae  (pronounced  mah-rye).  We 
turned  down  a  road  across  a  private,  neglected  property, 
and  for  almost  a  mile  urged  the  horse  through  brambles 
and  brush  that  had  overgrown  the  way.  We  were  go- 
ing toward  the  sea  along  a  promontory,  "the  point"  upon 
which  Cook's  mariners  saw  the  etoa-tvees  a  century  and 
a  half  ago,  about  the  time  that  Americans  were  seeking 
separation  from  England,  before  Napoleon  had  risen  to 
power,  and  when  gentlemen  drank  three  bottles  of  port 
after  dinner  and  took  their  places  under  the  table. 

"Tooti  was  in  love  with  Oberea,"  said  the  chief.  "She 
was  hinaaro  puai." 

The  expression  is  difficult  to  translate,  but  Sappho 
and  Cleopatra  expressed  it  in  their  lives;  perhaps  ar- 
dent in  love  would  be  a  mild  synonym. 

At  last,  after  hard  struggles,  we  reached  Point  Ma- 
haiatea,  the  "point"  of  Cook,  on  the  bay  of  Popoti,  which 
swept  from  it  to  the  beginning  of  the  valley  of  Taharuu. 
The  reef  was  very  close  to  the  shore,  and  the  sea  had  en- 
croached upon  the  land,  covering  a  considerable  area  of 
the  site  of  the  marae.  The  waves  had  torn  away  the 
coral  blocks,  and  they  lay  in  confusion  in  the  water. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  443 

The  beach,  too,  was  paved  with  coral  fragments,  the 
debris  of  the  temple.  Though  devastated  thus  by  time, 
by  the  waves,  and  by  the  hands  of  house-,  bridge-,  and 
road-builders,  by  lime-makers,  and  iconoclastic  vandals, 
the  marae  yet  had  majesty  and  an  air  of  mystery.  It 
was  not  nearly  of  the  original  height,  hardly  a  third  of  it, 
and  was  covered  with  twisted  and  gnarled  toa,  or  iron- 
wood,  trees  like  banians,  the  etoa  of  Cook,  and  by  very 
tall  and  broad  pandanus,  by  masses  of  lantana  and  other 
flowering  growths.  Tetuanui,  Brooke,  and  I  stumbled 
through  these,  and  walked  about  the  uneven  top,  once 
the  floor  of  the  temple. 

"Every  man  in  Tahiti  brought  one  stone,  and  the 
marae  was  builded,"  said  Tetuanui.  "We  were  many 
then." 

He  had  not  been  there  in  fifty  years. 
We  crawled  down  the  other  side,  a  broken  incline, 
and  to  the  beach.  Land-crabs  scrambled  for  their  holes, 
the  sole  inhabitants  of  the  spot  once  given  to  chants  and 
prayers,  burials,  and  the  sacrifice  of  humans  to  the 
never-satisfied  gods.  There  was  an  acrid  humor  in  the 
name  of  the  bay  on  which  we  looked,  Popoti  meaning 
cockroach.  That  malodorous  insect  would  be  on  this 
shore  when  the  last  Tahitian  was  dead.  It  existed 
hundreds  of  millions  of  years  before  man,  and  had  not 
changed.  It  was  one  of  the  oldest  forms  of  present 
life,  better  fitted  to  survive  than  the  breed  of  Plato, 
Shakespere,  or  Washington.  Its  insect  kind  was  the 
most  dangerous  enemy  man  had:  the  only  form  of  life 
he  had  not  conquered,  and  would  be  crooning  cradle- 
songs  when  humanity,  perhaps  through  its  agency,  or 
perhaps  through  the  sun  growing  cold,  had  passed  from 


444  MYSTIC  ISLES 

the  earth.  Not  impossibly,  insects  would  render  ex- 
tinct all  other  beings,  and  then  the  cockroach  could  pro- 
claim that  creation  had  its  apotheosis  in  it. 

The  marae  was  the  cathedral  of  the  Tahitians. 
About  it  focused  all  the  ceremonies  of  the  worship  of 
divinity,  of  consecration  of  priests  and  warriors  to  their 
gods  and  their  chiefs.  The  oldest  marae  was  that  of 
Opoa,  on  the  island  of  Raiatea,  the  source  of  the  relig- 
ion of  these  groups.  It  was  built  by  Hiro,  the  first 
king  of  Raiatea,  who,  deified  after  death,  became  the 
god  of  thieves.  The  Papara  marae  was  made  of  coral, 
but  the  quarried  mountain  rock  was  laid  at  the  founda- 
tion, and  these  ponderous,  uneven  stones  being  patched 
with  coral,  in  time  the  blocks  had  become  tightly  ce- 
mented together.  A  lime-kiln  was  along  the  land  side 
of  this  marae  of  Oberea,  and  for  years  had  furnished 
the  cement,  plaster,  and  whitewash  of  the  district. 

In  the  rear  of  the  marae  was  the  ossary  where  the 
bones  of  the  victims  were  thrown.  In  Manila  I  had 
viewed  immense  heaps  of  these  discarded  skeletons  of 
humans  dragged  from  niches  in  a  wall  and  flung  indis- 
criminately on  the  ground  by  the  monks,  who  owned 
the  Paco  cemetery,  because  the  rent  for  the  niches  was 
past  due.  Tetuanui  said  that  in  his  grandfather's  day 
there  was  a  bad  odor  about  the  ossary,  as  there  was  in 
Paco  until  the  American  Government  abolished  the  in- 
iquity. 

The  altar  itself  was  called  Fatarau.  Here  were  laid 
the  offerings  of  fruit  and  meat,  but  human  victims  were 
not  exposed  on  it.  Their  bodies  were  thrown  into  the 
ossary  after  the  ceremony  was  completed.  The  altar 
was  always  bare  except  at  these  times,  and  none 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  445 

ascended  it  but  priests,  ecstatics,  and  the  man  who  car- 
ried the  god.  Only  he  and  the  high  priest  might  touch 
this  idol.  The  demoniacs  were  usually  in  collusion  with 
the  priests,  willy-nilly. 

The  idol  was  the  king's  or  prince's  god.  Each  had 
his  own.  A  royal  idol  was  wrapped  in  precious  cloths 
and  adorned  with  feathers,  made  usually  of  ironwood, 
and  was  about  six  feet  long.  They  diminished  in  size 
with  the  importance  of  the  owner,  and  among  the  com- 
moners might  be  put  in  a  pocket  or  a  piece  of  bamboo, 
like  the  pocket  saints  one  buys  in  Rome.  Besides,  every 
chief  and  little  chief  had  his  own  marae,  which  might  be 
very  small  indeed,  as  family  shrines.  Of  great  religious 
events  the  royal  maraes  were  the  scenes,  and  the  high 
priests  were  attached  to  these.  The  personnel  of  the 
marae  was : 

The  king,  chief,  or  master  of  the  temple;  all  cere- 
monies were  for  his  benefit.  The  high  priest  and  his  as- 
sistants, the  latter  ordinary  priests.  The  high  priests 
served  only  the  maraes  of  the  first  rank.  The  orero, 
who  were  preachers  or  poets;  the  oripou,  or  night  run- 
ners; the  guardian  porters  of  the  idol.  The  sorcerers 
or  demoniacs. 

Thus  there  were  six  ranks  in  the  service  of  the  temple. 
The  high  priest  was  supreme  under  the  king,  and  de- 
cided when  a  human  sacrifice  was  demanded  by  the  gods. 
He  was  a  kind  of  cardinal  or  bishop,  and  his  jurisdiction 
extended  over  the  maraes  in  the  territory  of  his  master. 
The  priests'  functions  were  like  those  of  the  high  priest 
except  that  they  were  subordinate,  and  they  could  not 
replace  him  in  certain  ceremonies.  The  orero  was  the 
living  book  of  the  religion,  the  holy  chants  of  tradition, 


446  MYSTIC  ISLES 

of  ancestry,  and  of  state.  He  must  recite  without  hesi- 
tation these  various  records  before  the  marae  in  the 
middle  of  an  immense  crowd.  The  orero  cultivated 
their  memories  marvelously.  They  were  usually  sons 
of  oreros  or  priests,  and  trained  by  years  of  study  to 
retain  volumes,  as  actors  do  parts.  The  oripou  or 
haerepo  were  youths,  neophytes,  intended  for  the  priest- 
hood, and  assisted  the  ordinary  priests ;  but  their  special 
duties  were  singular  and  interesting.  They  were  the 
couriers  of  the  night,  the  spies  of  their  districts  upon 
neighboring  clans.  In  war-time  their  work  was  arduous 
and  most  important,  and  their  calling  very  honorable. 
Kings'  sons  sometimes  were  oripou.  The  idol-carriers 
were  tabu.  Their  persons  might  not  be  touched  nor 
their  food. 

The  sorcerers,  ecstatics,  and  demoniacs  were  not  regu- 
larly organized  into  a  caste.  When  a  man  fancied  him- 
self possessed  by  a  god,  he  became  a  recognized  saint. 
He  was  tabu.  He  ascended  to  the  altar  and  danced  or 
gyrated  as  he  pleased.  The  old  missionaries,  who  be- 
lieved these  sorcerers  inhabited  by  devils,  record  in- 
credible deeds  by  them.  Often  the  spirit  forsook  them, 
and  they  became  common  clay,  but  when  primed  with  the 
deity's  power,  they  would  ascend  vertical  rocks  of  great 
height  by  touching  the  smooth  surface  with  tiny  idols 
which  they  held  in  their  hands,  and  without  any  contact 
by  their  feet.  These  demoniacs  recall  the  oracles  of 
ancient  nations,  and  especially  Simon  Magus,  the  pre- 
cursor of  innumerable  fathers  of  new  religions,  who  by 
the  power  of  the  "Christian  God"  fell  to  a  horrible  death 
when  he  tried  to  fly  before  the  Roman  emperor  on  the 
wings  of  the  devil. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  447 

Before  a  day  of  sacrifice  a  victim  was  selected  by  the 
high  priest.  The  victim  had  no  knowledge  of  his  ap- 
proaching end.  He  must  not  be  informed,  and  though 
his  father  and  mother  and  family  were  told  in  advance, 
thev  never  warned  their  unfortunate  loved  one.  Xo 

• 

hand  was  lifted  to  avert  his  fate,  for  he  was  tabu  to  the 
gods.  Though  no  excuse  could  be  offered  for  the  slay- 
ing of  their  own  clansman  except  the  direful  hold  of  re- 
ligion, which  in  Tahiti,  as  in  Europe  not  so  long  ago,  put 
Protestant  and  Catholic  on  the  pyre  in  the  name  of 
Christ,  yet  so  soft-hearted  were  these  people  that  they 
could  not  disturb  the  peace  of  mind  of  the  offering,  and 
until  the  moment  when  he  was  struck  down  from  be- 
hind he  was  as  unconcerned  as  any  one.  They  never 
tortured  as  the  English  and  French  tortured  Joan  of 
Arc,  and  as  the  police  of  America  torture  thousands  of 
Americans  every  day. 

I  looked  long  at  this  ruined  pagan  tabernacle,  this 
arc  of  the  covenant  for  Oberea  and  Oamo,  and  for 
Tetuanui's  fathers.  The  chief  said  that  his  grandfather 
had  seen  it  in  its  palmy  period.  Oberea  was  an  an- 
cestress of  my  host  of  Papara,  Tati  Salmon,  who  had 
the  table-ware  of  Stevenson,  and  who  was  of  the  clan  of 
Teva,  as  she. 

Wrecked,  battered  by  the  surf,  torn  to  pieces  by  pick- 
axes, undermined  by  the  sea,  and  overgrown  by  the  rank 
foliage  of  the  tropics,  the  marae  preserved  for  me  and 
for  Brooke,  too,  a  solemnity  and  reminiscent  grandeur 
that  brought  a  vision  of  the  beauty  and  \night  of  the 
passionate  Oberea,  who  had  commanded  it  to  be  built. 
Though  different  in  environment  as  the  sea  from  the 
desert,  and  in  size  and  aspect,  ifiaterials  and  history,  I  was 


448  MYSTIC  ISLES 

transported  from  this  Tahitian  temple  to  the  pyramids 
on  the  sands  of  Egypt.  Forty  centuries  later  I  could 
trace  the  same  aspiration  for  community  with  deity  and 
for  immortality  of  monument  which  had  sweated  a  hun- 
dred thousand  men  for  twenty  years  to  rear  the  lofty 
pile  of  Gizeh.  In  Borobodo,  in  the  jungle  of  Java,  I 
had  seen,  as  near  Cairo,  the  proudest  trophy,  temple, 
and  tomb  of  king  and  priest  humbled  in  the  dust  by  the 
changing  soul  of  man  in  his  fight  to  throw  off  the 
shackles  of  the  past. 

This  marae  had  not  been  a  place  of  cannibalism,  as  the 
Paepae  Tapu  of  the  Marquesas  Islands.  The  Tahi- 
tians  had  no  record  of  ever  having  eaten  humans.  They 
replied  to  the  first  whites  who  asked  them  if  they  ate 
people : 

"Do  you?" 

Yet  when  a  human  sacrifice  was  made,  the  presiding 
chief  was  offered  the  left  eye  of  the  victim,  and  at  least 
feigned  to  eat  it.  Was  this  a  remnant  of  a  forgotten 
cannibalistic  habit,  or  a  protest  of  the  Tahitians  and 
Hawaiians  against  the  custom  as  not  being  Polynesian, 
but  a  concession  to  a  fashion  adopted  in  fighting  the 
Fijian  anthropopogi ? 

The  people  of  Huahine,  an  island  near  Tahiti,  had  a 
supreme  god  named  Tane,  who  might  be  touched  only  by 
one  human  being,  a  man  selected  for  that  purpose.  He 
was  the  sole  bachelor  on  the  island,  being  forbidden  to 
marry.  Whenever  the  priests  wanted  Tane  moved  to 
a  shrine,  this  chap,  te  amo  atua  (the  god-bearer)  had  to 
pack  him  on  his  back.  The  idol  was  a  heavy  block  of 
wood,  and  when  his  bearer  wearied,  it  had  to  appear 
that  the  god  wanted  to  rest,  for  a  god-bearer  could  not 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  449 

be  tired.  The  missionaries  burned  Tane  with  glee,  after 
a  battle  between  the  Christian  converts  and  the  heathen 
reactionaries.  The  progressives  won,  and  convinced 
the  enemy  that  Tane  was  a  wretched  puppet  of  the 
priests,  so  that  they  dragged  the  god  from  his  lofty 
house,  and  kicked  him  on  to  his  funeral  pyre.  "There 
was  great  rejoicing  in  heaven  that  day,"  says  a  pious 
English  commentator. 

The  Polynesians  had  very  fixed  ideas  upon  the  origin 
of  the  universe  and  of  man.  In  Hawaii,  Taaroa  made 
man  out  of  red  earth,  araea,  and  breathed  into  his  nos- 
trils. He  made  woman  from  man's  bones,  and  called 
her  ivi  (pronounced  eve-y) .  At  the  hill  of  Kauwiki,  on 
the  eastern  point  of  the  island  of  Maui,  Hawaii,  the 
heaven  was  so  near  the  earth  that  it  could  be  reached  by 
the  thrust  of  a  strong  spear,  and  is  to-day  called  lani 
haahaa. 

The  Marquesans  said  that  in  the  beginning  there  was 
no  light,  life,  or  sound  in  the  world;  that  a  boundless 
night,  Po,  enveloped  everything,  over  which  Tanaoa, 
(Darkness),  and  Mutu-hci,  (Silence),  ruled  supreme. 
Then  the  god  of  light  separated  from  Tanaoa,  fought 
him,  drove  him  away,  and  confined  him  to  night.  Then 
the  god  Ono,  (Sound) ,  was  evolved  from  Atea,  (Light) , 
and  banished  Silence.  From  all  this  struggle  was  born 
the  Dawn,  (Atanua).  Atea  married  the  Dawn,  and 
they  created  earth,  animals,  man. 

In  most  of  Polynesia  there  are  legends  of  a  universal 
flood  from  which  few  escaped.  In  Fiji  it  was  said  that 
two  races  were  entirely  wiped  out,  one  of  women,  and 
the  other  of  men  and  women  with  tails.  A  little  bird 
sat  on  the  top  of  the  uncovered  land  and  wailed  the  de- 


450  MYSTIC  ISLES 

struction.  The  Marquesans  built  a  great  canoe  like  a 
house,  with  openings  for  air  and  light,  but  tight  against 
the  rain.  The  ark  was  stored  with  provisions,  and  the 
animals  of  the  earth  were  driven  in  two  by  two,  fastened 
in  couples.  Then  the  family  of  four  men  and  four 
women  entered  the  ark,  sacrificed  a  turtle  to  God,  and 
retired  to  rest  amidst  the  terrific  din  of  the  confined  ani- 
mals. The  storm  burst,  and  the  waters  covered  the  en- 
tire land.  The  storm  ceased  and  a  black  bird  was  sent 
over  the  sea  of  Hawaii.  It  returned  to  the  ark,  and  a 
wind  set  in  from  the  north.  Another  bird  was  loosed, 
and  alighted  on  the  sea-shore.  It  was  recalled,  and  a 
third  bird  brought  back  twigs.  The  ark  soon  grounded, 
and  the  four  men  and  four  women  released  the  beasts, 
and  went  ashore.  These  repopulated  the  earth. 

The  Samoans  believed  that  the  earth  was  once  covered 
with  water  and  the  sky  alone  was  inhabited,  until  God 
sent  his  only  begotten  daughter  in  the  form  of  a  kuri, 
or  snipe,  to  look  for  dry  land.  She  found  a  spot,  and 
brought  down  to  it  earth,  and  a  creeping  plant,  which 
grew  and  decomposed  into  worms,  and,  lo!  the  worms 
turned  into  men  and  women. 

In  Hawaii  Nuu  was  saved  from  a  similar  flood,  and 
with  him  his  three  sons  and  their  families.  Ten  genera- 
tions later  Kanehoalani  was  commanded  by  God  to  in- 
troduce circumcision.  He  went  to  a  far-off  country, 
had  a  son  by  a  slave  woman  and  one  by  his  wife.  He 
was  then  commanded,  this  descendant  of  Xuu  in  the 
tenth  generation,  to  go  up  on  a  mountain  and  perform 
a  sacrifice.  He  sought  a  mountain,  but  none  appeared 
suitable;  so  he  communed  with  God,  who  told  him  to 
travel  to  the  east,  and  he  would  find  a  precipice.  He 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  451 

departed  with  his  son  and  a  servant.  The  Hawaiian* 
still  call  the  mountains  back  of  Koolau,  near  Honolulu, 
after  the  name  of  the  three,  and  when  the  missionaries 
gave  them  the  Jewish  sacred  books,  were  delighted  to 
point  out  that  long  before  Christ  came  to  earth  they  had 
believed  as  above,  and  that  Abraham  was  the  tenth  from 
Xoah,  that  Abraham  practised  circumcision,  and  was 
father  of  Isaac  and  the  illegitimate  Ishmael,  and  that 
their  descendant  of  Xuu,  as  Abraham,  became  the  father 
of  twelve  children,  and  the  founder  of  the  Polynesian 
race,  as  Abraham  had  of  the  Jews. 

One  might  detect  some  relation  to  the  Hebraic  scrip- 
tures in  the  legends  of  the  Maoris  of  Xew  Zealand  and 
Tonga  that  the  older  son  of  the  first  man  killed  his 
brother,  and  that  in  Fiji  one  still  is  shown  the  site  where 
a  vast  tower  was  built  because  the  Fijians  wanted  to 
peer  into  the  moon  to  discover  if  it  was  inhabited.  A 
lofty  mound  was  erected,  and  the  building  of  timber 
upon  it.  It  was  already  in  the  sky  when  the  fastenings 
broke,  and  the  workmen  were  precipitated  over  every 
part  of  Fiji. 

The  sun  stood  still  for  Hiaka  when  she  attempted  to 
recover  the  body  of  Lohiau,  her  sister  Pele's  lover. 
There  was  not  daylight  enough  to  climb  the  mountain 
Ivalalau  and  bring  down  the  body  from  a  cave,  so  she 
prayed,  and  the  sun  set  much  later  than  usual.  Aukele- 
nui-a  Iku,  the  next  to  the  youngest  of  twelve  children, 
was  hated  by  his  brothers  because  he  was  his  father's 
favorite,  and  they  threw  him  into  a  pit  to  die.  His  next 
eldest  brother  rescued  him,  and  he  became  a  traveler, 
and  found  the  water  of  life,  with  which  he  restored  his 
brother  who  had  been  drowned  years  before.  The 


452  MYSTIC  ISLES 

Chaldeans  had  a  similar  legend.  Ninkigal,  goddess  of 
the  regions  of  the  dead,  ordered  Simtar,  her  attendant, 
to  restore  life  to  Ishtar  with  the  "waters  of  life." 

Naula-a-Maihea  of  Oahu,  not  far  from  Honolulu, 
was  upset  from  his  canoe  while  paddling  to  Kauai,  and 
was  swallowed  by  a  whale,  which  kindly  threw  him  up 
on  the  beach  of  Wailua. 

Kana-loa  and  Kane-Apua,  prophets,  walked  about 
the  world,  causing  water  to  flow  from  rocks,  as  did 
Moses,  and  in  the  ancient  litany,  recited  by  priest  and 
congregation,  the  responses  of  "Hooia,  e  oia!"  meant 
"It  is  true!"  as  does  Amen,  the  response  of  Christian 
litanies  to-day.  The  custom  of  using  holy  water  pre- 
vailed all  over  Polynesia. 

"The  ocean  which  surrounds  the  earth  was  made  salt 
by  God  so  it  should  not  stink,"  said  the  legend,  "and  to 
keep  it  salt  is  the  special  work  of  God." 

To  celebrate  God's  act,  the  priests  of  Polynesia 
blessed  waters  for  purification,  for  prayer,  and  for  pub- 
lic and  private  ceremonies,  and  to  exorcise  demons  and 
drive  away  diseases,  as  the  priests  of  America  and 
Europe  do.  Holy  water  was  called  ka  wai  kapu  a 
Kane,  and  from  the  baptizing  of  the  new-born  child  to 
the  sprinkling  of  the  dying  its  sacred  uses  were  many. 
To-day  the  older  people  use  these  pagan  ablutions  to 
alleviate  pain  and  cure  maladies.  The  old  Greeks  used 
salt  water  for  the  same  purposes,  and  had  holy-water 
fonts  at  the  temple  gates,  as  do  the  Catholic  churches 
to-day. 

Levy  and  Woronick  believed,  or  pridefully  affected 
to  believe,  that  at  a  remote  period  a  band  of  Israelites, 
perhaps  one  of  the  lost  tribes  carried  away  by  the 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  453 

Assyrians,  peopled  these  islands;  or  settled  in  Malaysia 
before  the  Polynesian  exodus  from  there,  and  gave  them 
their  lore.  Pere  Rambaud  of  the  Catholic  mission  at 
Papeete  considered  it  more  probable  that  Spaniards, 
reaching  Hawaii  from  wrecked  Spanish  galleons  voyag- 
ing between  Mexico  and  Manila,  brought  the  holy  doc- 
trines. His  explanation,  however,  often  advanced,  fell 
utterly  before  the  fact  that  the  Polynesians  had  no 
knowledge  of  Jesus  or  any  man  or  god  like  him,  and 
knew  nothing  of  original  sin;  but,  more  convincing,  all 
Polynesia  had  these  legends,  and  there  had  been  no  com- 
munication with  the  Maoris  of  Xew  Zealand  and  with 
Fiji  after  the  Spanish  entered  the  Philippines.  It  is  to 
me  quite  certain  that  the  Polynesians  brought  with  them 
from  Malaysia  or  India  or  from  farther  toward  Europe 
those  traditions  of  the  beginnings  of  mankind  which 
grew  up  hundreds  of  thousands  of  years  ago,  and  were 
dispersed  with  each  group  setting  out  for  adventure  or 
driven  from  the  birthplace  of  thinking  humans. 

Taaroa,  whose  name  was  spelt  differently  in  separated 
archipelagos,  was  the  father  of  the  Tahitian  cosmogony. 
His  wife  was  Hina,  the  earth,  and  his  son,  Oro,  was 
ruler  of  the  world.  Tane,  the  Huahine  god,  was  a 
brother  of  Oro,  and  his  equal,  but  there  were  islands 
which  disputed  this  equality,  and  shed  blood  to  disprove 
it,  as  the  sects  of  Christianity  have  since  the  peaceful 
Jesus  died  by  the  demands  of  the  priests  of  his  nation. 

Haui  was  the  Tahitian  Hercules.  ,Of  course  he,  too, 
bade  the  sun  to  stay  a  while  unmoving,  and  it  did. 
Joshua,  the  son  of  Nun,  whose  astronomical  exploit  at 
Gibeon  brought  him  immortal  fame,  was  a  glorious  war- 
rior; but  Haui's  unwritten  achievements,  as  chanted  by 


454  MYSTIC  ISLES 

the  orero  at  the  marae  where  Tetuanui,  Brooke,  and  I 
stood,  would  have  forced  the  successor  of  Moses  to  have 
withdrawn  his  book  from  circulation,  as  too  dull. 

The  Polynesian  creator  put  on  earth  hogs,  dogs,  and 
reptiles.  There  were  many  kinds  of  dogs  in  their  my- 
thology, including  the  "large  dog  with  sharp  teeth,"  and 
the  "royal  dog  of  God."  Among  reptiles  was  Moo,  a 
terrible  dragon  living  in  caverns  above  and  beneath  the 
sea,  who  was  dreaded  above  all  dangers.  He  was  to 
them  the  monster  that  guarded  the  Hesperides  garden, 
and  the  beast  that  St.  George  slew;  but  as  the  common 
lizard  was  the  largest  reptile  in  Polynesia,  this,  too,  was 
an  heirloom  from  another  land.  In  the  old  Havaii— 
probably  Java — they  must  have  known  those  fierce 
crocodiles  that  I  have  seen  drag  down  a  horse  drinking 
in  the  river  at  Palawan,  and  noted  swimming  in  the  open 
sea  between  Siassi  and  Borneo. 

The  chief  and  Brooke  and  I  sat  in  the  shade  of  the 
efoa-trees,  and  conversed  about  these  ancient  stories. 
Fixed  in  the  mind  of  the  race  by  the  repetition  of  ages, 
they  are  the  most  difficult  of  all  errors  to  erase,  and  the 
professors  of  this  wisdom  stamp  it  upon  the  heart  and 
brain  of  the  child  in  almost  indelible  colors,  and  make  it 
tabu,  sacrilege,  or  treason  to  deny  its  verity.  Half  a 
century  ago  repairs  became  necessary  to  Mohammed's 
tomb  at  Medina,  and  masons  were  asked  to  volunteer  to 
make  them,  and  submit  to  beheading  immediately  after. 
There  was  no  lack  of  desirous  martyrs.  One  descended 
into  the  mausoleum,  finished  the  task,  and,  reaching  the 
air  again,  knelt,  turned  his  face  toward  Mecca,  and  bent 
his  head  for  the  ax.  The  Mussulman  keepers  of  the 
tomb  justified  their  act,  as,  the  forbidding  telling  the 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  455 

truth  about  religion  and  government,  about  war  and 
business,  is  justified.  Their  words  were : 

"We  picture  those  places  to  ourselves  in  a  certain 
manner,  and  for  the  preservation  of  our  holy  religion, 
and  the  safety  of  society,  there  must  not  be  any  one 
who  can  say  they  are  otherwise." 

It  was  noon  when  Brooke  and  I — Tetuanui  having 
gone  to  instruct  his  gang — plunged  into  the  sea  in  front 
of  the  chefferie,  and  laughed  in  the  joy  of  the  sweet 
hour.  He  had  written  lines  of  beauty  that  interpreted 
our  humor : 

Tail  here,  Mamua, 

Crown  the  hair,  and  come  away! 

Hear  the  calling  of  the  moon, 

And  the  whispering  scents  that  stray 

About  the  idle  warm  lagoon. 

Hasten,  hand  in  human  hand, 

Down  the  dark,  the  flowered  way, 

Along  the  whiteness  of  the  sand, 

And  in  the  water's  soft  caress 

Wash  the  mind  of  foolishness, 

Mamua,  until  the  day. 

Spend  the  glittering  moonlight  there, 

Pursuing  down  the  soundless  deep 

Limbs  that  gleam  and  shadowy  hair; 

Or  floating  lazy,  half-asleep. 

Dive  and  double  and  follow  after, 

Snare  in  flowers,  and  kiss,  and  call, 

With  lips  that  fade,  and  human  laughter 

And  faces  individual ! 

Well  this  side  of  Paradise!  .  .  . 

There  's  little  comfort  in  the  wise. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

I  start  for  Tautira — A  dangerous  adventure  in  a  canoe — I  go  by  land  to 
Tautira — I  meet  Choti  and  the  Greek  God — I  take  up  my  home  where 
Stevenson  lived. 

SEEING  the  way  the  Lermontoffs  lived,  caused 
me  to  resolve  that  during  the  remainder  of  my 
stay  in  Tahiti  I  would  go  even  farther  from  Pa- 
peete than  Mataiea.  They  suggested  Tautira,  a  village 
they  had  never  visited,  but  which  was  at  the  very  end  of 
the  habitable  part  of  the  Presqu'ile  of  Taiarapu.  My 
easiest  route  to  Tautira  was  by  crossing  the  isthmus  of 
Taravao,  to  the  other  side  of  the  peninsula,  as  nowhere 
in  Tahiti  except  at  Lake  Vaihiria  were  there  even  pas- 
sable trails  across  the  lofty  spine  of  the  island.  I  was 
for  sending  back  the  cart  and  horse  to  Taravao  and  tak- 
ing a  canoe  to  Tautira.  A  council  of  the  elders  of 
Vaieri  opposed  me,  but  yielded  to  my  persistence  by  ad- 
vising me  at  least  to  ride  as  far  as  possible  in  the  cart 
along  the  western  road,  and  to  find,  nearer  to  Tautira, 
in  Maora,  or  farther  on,  in  Puforatoai,  a  canoe  and 
canoeists  for  the  risky  attempt. 

Tatini,  who  had  lagged  behind  at  Butscher's,  ap- 
peared as  I  harnessed  the  horse.  She  had  accompanied 
the  Tinito  storekeeper  of  Taravao  to  Vaieri,  and  would 
not  permit  me  to  go  on  alone.  She  climbed  into  the 
vehicle,  and  we  wended  a  winding  road,  and  forded 
several  streams  until  we  came  to  Puforatoai,  having  gone 
thiough  Hatiti  and  Maora.  There  was  a  pass  in  the 

456 


MYSTIC  ISLES  457 

reef  admitting  to  a  questionable  shelter,  Port  Beau- 
manoir,  used  by  the  French  when  little  gunboats 
threatened  to  bombard  villages  to  force  the  rule  of 
Paris. 

Puforatoai  was  a  handful  of  houses,  hardly  a  village. 
My  advent  was  of  importance,  and  its  few  people 
gathered  about  us.  They  voiced  their  amazement  when 
Tatini  announced  our  wish  to  find  a  navigator  and  ves- 
sel to  Tautira.  They  all  said  it  was  impossible,  that  the 
coast  to  Pari,  with  the  submerged  reef  of  Faratara,  was 
too  rough  now  for  any  but  a  large  power  boat,  and  the 
wind  would  be  baffling  and  threatening.  But  as  fear  of 
the  sea  was  unknown  to  them,  they  expressed  a  will  to 
make  the  attempt.  We  launched  a  large  canoe,  and 
two  sturdy  natives,  relations  of  Tatini,  took  the  paddles. 
They  had  made  the  journey  more  than  once,  but  not  at 
this  season. 

We  got  into  difficulties  from  the  start.  The  shores 
were  very  different  from  those  of  Mataiea,  Papeari,  and 
Vairao,  the  three  districts  I  had  come  through  from  the 
house  of  Tetuanui.  The  alluvial  strip  of  land  which  in 
them  stretched  from  a  quarter  of  a  mile  to  a  mile  from 
the  lagoon  to  the  slopes  of  the  hills,  here  was  cramped  to 
the  barest  strip.  The  huts  of  the  indigenes,  few  and 
far  apart  outside  of  Puforatoai,  seemed  to  be  set  in  ter- 
races cut  at  the  foot  of  the  mountains  which  rose  almost 
straight  from  the  streak  of  golden  sand  to  the  skies.  In 
every  shade  of  green,  as  run  by  the  overhead  sun  upon 
the  altering  facets  of  precipice  and  shelf,  of  fei  and 
cocoa,  candlenut  and  purau,  giant  ferns  and  convolvulus, 
tier  upon  tier,  was  a  riot  of  richest  vegetation.  But 
everywhere  in  the  lagoon  were  bristling  and  hiding 


458  MYSTIC  ISLES 

dangers  from  hummocks  of  coral  and  sunken  banks. 

Our  canoe  was  twenty  feet  long,  and  with  a  very 
strong  outrigger,  but  though  all  four  of  us  paddled, 
Teta,  the  chief  man  of  Puforatoai,  in  the  stern,  steering, 
the  vaa  labored  heavily.  Tatini  was  adept  in  canoeing, 
and  with  a  quartet  of  hoe  we  would  have  ordinarily  sent 
the  Vaa  spinning  through  the  water;  but  we  were  near- 
ing  the  southernmost  extremity  of  the  Presqu'ile,  and 
the  wind  and  current  from  the  northeast  swept  about 
the  broken  coast  in  a  confusion  of  puffs  and  blasts, 
choppy  waves  and  roaring  breakers,  and  made  our  pro- 
gress slow  and  hazardous.  The  breeze  caught  up  the 
foam  and  formed  sheets  of  vapor  which  whipped  GUI 
faces  and  blinded  us,  while  an  occasional  roller  broke  on 
our  prow,  and  soon  gave  Tatini  continuous  work  in  bail- 
ing with  a  handled  scoop. 

Opposite  the  pass  of  Tutataroa  our  greatest  peril 
came.  The  ocean  swept  through  this  narrow  channel 
like  a  mill-race.  The  first  swell  tossed  us  up  ten  feet, 
and  we  rode  on  it  fifty  before  Teta  could  disengage  us 
from  its  clasp,  and,  without  capsizing,  divert  our  course 
westward  instead  of  toward  the  parlous  shore.  One 
such  jeopardy  succeeded  another.  We  were  in  a  quar- 
ter of  an  hour  directly  under  black  and  frowning  heights 
from  which  a  score  of  cascades  and  rills  leaped  into  the 
air,  their  masses  of  water,  carried  by  the  gusts,  falling 
upon  us  in  showers  and  clouds,  aiding  the  flying  scud 
in  shielding  the  distance  ahead  from  our  view. 

"Aita  e  ravea"  shouted  Teta  to  me.  "It  is  impossible 
to  go  on." 

We  were  all  as  wet  as  if  in  the  sea,  our  faces  and 
bodies  stung  by  the  spindrift,  and  we  were  barely  able 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  459 

to  glimpse  a  dark  and  heaving  panorama  of  surf,  rock, 
and  bluff  in  the  mists  that  now  and  again  were  pene- 
trated by  the  hot  sun. 

"Maitai!  Hohoi!"  I  replied  above  the  clangor,  and 
raised  my  paddle. 

Carefully  and  in  a  wide  circle  the  v aa  crept  around  to 
head  back  toward  our  port,  and  it  was  after  sunset  be- 
fore we  were  in  Teta's  house  in  Puforatoai.  The  vil- 
lagers met  us  with  torches  and  incredulous  aues  and  we 
walked  up  the  road  singing  the  song  of  the  "Ai  Dobbe- 
belly  Dobbebelly,"  which  was  known  wherever  a  fisher 
for  market  dwelt  in  all  Tahiti.  The  farther  from  Pa- 
peete and  more  and  more  as  time  passed,  the  words  lost 
resemblance  to  English,  and  became  mere  native  sounds 
without  any  exact  meaning,  but  with  a  never-forgotten 
sentiment  of  rebellion  against  government  and  of  gild 
alliance. 

"Give  us  a  hand-out!"  had  changed  fTomffhizzandow" 
in  Papeete,  to  "Hitia  o  te  ra!"  which  meant  that  the  sun 
was  rising.  Within  a  year  or  two  the  entire  text  would 
doubtless  merge  into  Tahitian  with  only  the  martial  air 
of  "Revive  us  again!"  and  the  dimming  memory  of  the 
fish-strike  to  recall  its  origin.  I  had  known  a  native 
who,  whenever  he  approached  me,  sang  in  a  faltering 
tone,  "Feery  feery!" 

I  asked  him  after  many  weeks  what  he  meant,  and 
he  said  that  that  was  a  himene,  which  a  young  American 
had  sung  at  his  potations  in  his  village  in  the  Marquesas 
Islands.  I  had  him  repeat  "Feery  feery!"  dozens  of 
times,  and  finally  snatched  at  an  old  glee  which  ran 
through  my  mind:  "Shoo  Fly,  don't  bother  me!"  and 
when  I  sang  it, 


460  MYSTIC  ISLES 

"I  feel,  I  feel,  I  feel, 

I  feel  like  a  morning  star!" 

he  struck  his  thigh,  and  said,  "Ea!  That  is  the  very 
thing!"  And  to  be  fair  to  all  races,  one  has  only  to 
listen  to  an  American  assemblage  singing  "The  Star- 
spangled  Banner"  to  learn  that  after  the  first  few  lines 
most  patriots  decline  into  "ah-ah-la-la-ha-la-ah-la-la." 

Before  our  supper  of  fish  and  fei,  Teta,  who  wras  a 
deacon  in  the  Protestant  church,  but  of  superior  knowl- 
edge of  his  own  tongue  and  legends,  asked  a  blessing 
of  God,  and  afterward  recited  for  me  the  Tahitian 
chant  of  creation,  the  source  of  which  was  in  the  very 
beginnings  of  his  race,  perhaps  even  previous  to  the  mi- 
gration from  Malaysia.  He  intoned  it,  solemnly,  as 
might  have  an  ancient  prophet  in  Israel,  as  we  sat  in  the 
starlit  night,  with  the  profound  notes  of  the  reef  in  uni- 
son with  his  deep  cadence : 

He  abides — Taaroa  by  name — 

In  the  immensity  of  space. 

There  was  no  earth,  there  was  no  heaven, 

There  was  no  sea,  there  was  no  mankind. 

Taaroa  calls  on  high; 

He  changes  himself  fully. 

Taaroa  is  the  root; 

The  rocks  (or  foundation)  ; 

Taaroa  is  the  sands ; 

Taaroa  stretches  out  the  branches   (is  wide-spreading). 

Taaroa  is  the  light; 

Taaroa  is  within; 

Taaroa  is, 

Taaroa  is  below ; 
Taaroa  is  enduring; 
Taaroa  is  wise; 


461 

He  created  the  land  of  Hawaii; 

Hawaii  great  and  sacred, 

As  a  crust  (or  shell)  for  Taaroa. 

The  earth  is  dancing  (moving). 

0  foundations,  O  rocks, 

Oh  sands !  here,  here. 

Brought  hither,  pressed  together  the  earth; 

Press,  press  again! 

They  do  not  

Stretch  out  the  seven  heavens;  let  ignorance  cease. 

Create  the  heavens,  let  darkness  cease. 

Let  anxiety  cease  within; 

Let  immobility  cease; 

Let  the  period  of  messengers  cease ; 

It  is  the  time  of  the  speaker. 

Fill  up  the  foundation, 

Fill  up  the  rocks, 

Fill  up  the  sands. 

The  heavens  are  inclosing. 

And  hung  up  are  the  heavens 

In  the  depths. 

Finished  be  the  world  of  Hawaii. 

E  pau  fenua  no  Hawaii. 

The  cart  at  my  request  had  been  driven  back  to  Tar- 
avao ;  so  in  the  morning  Tatini  and  I  walked  back  to  the 
isthmus.  We  drank  coffee  at  five,  and  at  three  we  had 
covered  the  twelve  miles  in  the  sauntering  gait  of  the 
Tahitian  girl,  stopping  to  make  wreaths,  and  to  bathe 
in  several  streams.  Butscher  was  on  his  table  in  his 
after-breakfast  lethargy,  and  I  regretted  disturbing  his 
iiii  to  ask  him  to  serve  us.  Again  Tatini  refused  to  sit  at 
table  with  me.  Evidently,  she  feared  the  scowls  of 
Butscher,  who  had  none  of  the  white's  ideas  of  the 
equality  of  females  with  males  at  the  board.  Butscher 


462  MYSTIC  ISLES 

added  many  francs  to  my  bill  by  pouring  me  another 
bottle  of  Pol  Roger,  1905,  which  after  several  days  of 
cocoanut  juice  took  on  added  delight.  I  made  up  my 
mind  to  tarry  with  Butscher  a  day,  wThile  Tatini  returned 
to  the  Tetuanui  mansion  by  diligence,  and  despatched 
my  bags  to  me  by  the  same  carrier.  I  sent  with  her  my 
love  to  the  Tetuanui  clan,  and  some  delicacies  from  the 
Maison  des  Varos  for  the  half-blind  Haamoura.  The 
diligence  did  not  run  farther  than  Taravao,  and  the  next 
day,  with  my  impedimenta  in  the  cart,  and  with  a  boy  to 
drive  it,  I  turned  my  back  on  the  road  to  Papeete,  and 
began  the  jog  trot  to  the  famous,  but  hardly  ever  visited, 
district  of  Tautira. 

I  counted  it  the  third  stage  in  my  pilgrimage  in  Ta- 
hiti. The  first  had  been  in  and  about  the  capital,  min- 
gling mostly  with  white  men,  and  living  in  a  public  inn ; 
the  second  at  Mataiea  had  taken  me  far  from  those 
rookeries,  and  had  introduced  me  to  the  real  Tahitians, 
to  their  language,  their  customs,  and  their  hearts;  but 
still  I  had  been  a  guest,  and  a  cared-for  and  guarded 
white  among  aborigines.  Now  I  wanted  to  cut  off  en- 
tirely from  the  main  road,  to  sequester  myself  in  a  far- 
away spot,  and  to  live  as  close  to  the  native  as  was  pos- 
sible for  me.  My  time  was  drawing  near  for  departure. 
I  must  see  all  of  the  Etablissements  Francais  de 
i'Oceanie,  the  blazing  Paumotu  atolls,  and  the  savage 
Marquesas,  and  I  must  make  the  most  of  the  several 
months  yet  remaining  for  me  in  Tahiti. 

The  highway  along  the  eastern  portion  of  the 
Presqu'ile  was  much  like  that  between  Taravao  and 
Puforatoai,  tortuous,  constricted,  and  often  forced  to 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  463 

hang  upon  a  shelf  carved  out  of  the  precipice  which 
hemmed  it.     The  route  hugged  the  sea,  but  at  every 
turn  I  saw  inland  the  laughing,  green  valleys,  deserted 
of  inhabitants,  climbing  slowly  between  massive  walls 
of  rock  to  which  clung  great  tree  ferns,  with  magnificent 
vert  parasols,  enormous  clumps  of  feis,  with  huge,  em- 
erald or  yellow  upstanding  bunches  of  fruit;  candlenut- 
and  ironwood-trees.     Uncounted,  delicious  odors  filled 
the  air,  distilled  from  the  wild  flowers,  the  vanilla,  or- 
chids, and  the  forests  of  oranges,  which,  though  not  of 
Tahiti,  were  already  venerable  in  their  many  decades  of 
residence.     Not  a  single  path  struck  off  from  the  belt 
road,  except  that  as  we  came  toward  the  centers  of 
Afaahiti  and  Pueu  districts  the  inevitable  store  or  two 
of  the   Chinese  appeared,  the  chefferie,  a  church  or 
two,  and  the  roofs  of  the  Tahitians.     These  were  al- 
ways near  the  beach,  set  back  a  few  hundred  feet  from 
the  road  in  rare  instances,  but  mostly  only  a  few  steps 
from  it.     The  Tahitian  never  lived  in  hamlets,  as  the 
Marquesan  and  the  Samoan,  but  each  family  dwelt  in 
its  wood  of  cocoanuts  and  breadfruit,  or  a  few  families 
clustered  their  inhabitants  for  intimacy  and  mutual  aid. 
The  whites,  missionaries,  conquerors,  and  traders  found 
this  system  not  conducive  to  their  ends.     Churches  de- 
mand for  prosperity  a  flock  about  the  ministrant,  busi- 
ness wants  customers  close  to  the  store,  and  government 
is  more  powerful  where  it  can  harangue  and  proclaim, 
parade  before  and  spy  upon  its  subjects.     Individual- 
istic and  segregated  domestic  circles  give  rise  to  tax 
evasions,  feuds,  and  moonshining,  plots  and  the  growth 
of  strong  men.     The  city  is  the  corral  where  humans 


464  MYSTIC  ISLES 

mill  like  cattle  in  a  panic,  are  more  easily  ridden  down 
en  masse,  and  become  habitual  buyers  of  unnecessary 
things. 

The  French,  after  their  bold  seizure  of  the  island  in 
the  name  of  liberty  for  the  earnest  friars,  and  sealing 
their  brave  conquest  in  the  blood  of  the  obstinate  Poly- 
nesian who  had  hated  to  learn  a  new  liturgy  and  to  un- 
learn his  old  Protestant  songs,  feared  that  the  disper- 
sion of  the  people  upon  their  little  plantations,  to  which 
they  were  greatly  attached,  would  make  their  Frenchi- 
fying a  long  task.  So,  about  sixty  years  ago,  a  gover- 
nor, who,  ten  thousand  miles  from  his  superiors,  with  an 
exchange  of  letters  taking  many  months,  was  an  auto- 
crat, decided  that  all  the  people  of  the  same  region  must 
be  huddled  in  a  village.  His  name  was  Gaultier  de  la 
Richerie.  His  office  was  snatched  from  him  by  another 
politician  before  he  could  carry  out  his  plan,  and  only 
one  village  exemplified  it.  In  all  the  districts  I  had 
passed  through  from  Papeete,  while  in  each  was  the 
knot  of  chefferie,  churches,  stores,  and  perhaps  a  house 
or  two,  the  other  residences  stretched  along  the  entire 
length  of  the  political  divisions,  from  six  to  eight  miles. 

I  was  approaching  the  exception,  Tautira,  which, 
though  farthest  of  all  from  the  palace  of  the  governor, 
had  been  chosen  for  the  first  experiment,  and  which  had 
adapted  its  life  to  the  paternal  will  of  M.  de  la  Richerie, 
now  long  since  laid  in  the  bosom  of  Pere  Lachaise. 

The  estimable  troubadour,  Brault,  had  advised  me  of 
the  history  of  Tautira.  It  was  seldom  visited  by  white 
tourists,  as  even  the  post  brought  by  the  diligence  ended 
at  Taravao,  and  letters  for  farther  on  were  carried  afoot 
by  the  mutoi.,  or  postman-policeman  of  the  adjoining 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  465 

district,  who  handed  on  to  his  contiguous  confrere  those 
for  more  distant  confines.  But  for  centuries  Tautira 
was  known  as  a  focus  of  the  wise,  of  priests,  sorcerers, 
and  doctors,  and,  said  the  knowing  Brault,  especially  of 
the  dancers,  and  those  who,  he  explained,  under  the 
banner  of  Venus. 

Ont  vu  maintes  batailles 
Et  re^u  nombre  d'entailles 
Depuis  les   pieds  jusqu'au  front. 

The  little  boy  and  I  chatted  as  the  horse  ambled  at 
will,  occasionally  urged  to  a  trot  by  a  shaking  of  the 
reins.  The  country  as  we  progressed  became  far  more 
beautiful  than  that  behind.  A  new  wildness,  not  fierce 
and  rugged  as  between  Vaiere  and  Puforatoai,  but 
gentler  and  more  inviting,  preluded  the  exquisite  set- 
ting of  the  village.  We  had  to  ford  a  stream  three  or 
four  feet  deep,  the  Vaitapiha,  and  the  struggle  through 
it  was  a  rare  pleasure,  the  child  on  the  back  of  the  ani- 
mal, and  I  with  the  reins  and  a  purau  twig  directing 
and  commanding  in  vain.  We  had  to  leap  into  the 
water  and  remove  a  boulder  or  two  that  stymied  the 
wheels.  When  we  had  pulled  through  to  the  opposite 
shore,  I  was  reduced  to  a  dry  pareu,  and  in  it  alone,  bare- 
footed, I  reached  the  rustic  paradise,  the  loveliness  of 
which  was  to  content  me  more  than  any  spot  except  the 
strangely  fascinating  valley  of  Atuona  in  the  sad  isle  of 
Hiva-Oa. 

In  a  delta  formed  by  the  Vaitapiha  the  settlement 
lay  among  tents  of  verdure.  For  a  mile  it  sprawled 
around  a  small  point  of  land  which  thrust  out  into  the 
sea,  and  which  was  guarded  by  the  most  wonderful  of 


466  MYSTIC  ISLES 

walls,  a  reef  of  madrepore,  as  solid  as  granite  and  sixty 
feet  wide.  The  road  was  arched  by  splendid  trees  of 
many  kinds,  and  facing  it,  every  several  hundred  feet, 
was  a  home.  Many  of  these  were  cottages  in  modern 
style,  but  a  dozen  or  so  were  the  true  Tahitian  fare,  of 
bamboo  and  thatch.  All  were  covered  with  flowering 
vines,  and  surrounded  by  many  fruiting  trees. 

"Tautira  nei!"  announced  my  coachman.  "Tautira 
is  here!" 

He  pulled  up  the  horse.  I  had  not  given  any  thought 
to  my  lodging,  and  I  jumped  out  and  looked  around. 
The  brook  curved  about  a  mango  grove,  and  under  its 
high  trees  was  a  new  native  house,  a  replica  of  the  com- 
modious dwellings  of  old  days.  I  walked  into  the 
grove,  and  was  admiring  the  careful,  but  charming, 
arrangements  of  ferns  and  orchids,  which,  though 
brought  from  the  forests,  had  been  fitted  into  the  scene 
to  simulate  a  natural  environment.  All  of  a  sudden  a 
something  I  could  not  see  hurled  itself  from  a  limb 
upon  my  head,  and  two  affrighting  paws  seized  my 
right  ear  and  my  hair,  grown  long  at  Mataiea,  and 
tried  to  tear  them  out  by  the  roots,  while  at  the  same 
time  many  fierce  teeth  closed,  though  without  much 
effect,  on  my  tough  and  weathered  shoulder.  In  hor- 
ror at  the  attack,  I  covered  yards  in  two  bounds,  and 
my  assailant  was  torn  from  its  hold  upon  me. 

I  then  turned  and  saw  that  it  was  a  monkey  tied  to 
a  rope  fastened  to  the  limb  of  the  tree.  He  stood  up- 
right on  the  ground,  his  jaws  agape,  and  a  look  of  devil- 
ish glee  upon  his  uncannily  manlike  face.  At  the  same 
moment  a  white  man  ran  from  the  house  and  called 
in  English: 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  467 

"You  damned  little  scoundrel!  How  often  have  I 
whipped  you  for  that  same  trick!  I  would  better  have 
left  you  in  the  slums  in  San  Francisco." 

And  then  apologetically  to  me: 

"I  ought  to  kill  him  for  that.  He's  a  devil,  that 
monkey.  He  has  bitten  all  the  children  around  here, 
has  killed  all  my  chickens,  and  raised  more  hell  in  this 
village  than  the  whole  population  put  together.  I 
swear,  I  believe  he  just  enjoys  being  mean.  Come  in 
and  have  a  snifter  after  that  greeting!  Did  he  hurt 
you?" 

My  would-be  host  was  himself  a  very  striking  some- 
body. He  wore  only  a  par  en,  as  I,  of  scarlet  muslin, 
with  the  William  Morris  design,  but  he  had  wound  his 
about  so  that  it  was  a  mere  ornamental  triangle  upon 
his  tall,  powerful,  statuesque  body.  His  chest  and  back 
had  a  growth  of  red-gold  hair,  which,  with  his  bronzed 
skin,  his  red-gold  beard,  dark  curls  over  a  high  fore- 
head, handsome  nose,  and  blue  eyes,  made  him  all  of 
the  same  color  scheme.  He  was  without  doubt  as  near 
to  a  Greek  deity  in  life,  a  Dionysus,  as  one  could  imag- 
ine. He  had  two  flaming  hibiscus  blossoms  over  his 
ears,  and  he  looked  in  his  late  twenties.  Accustomed 
as  I  was  to  semi-nudity  and  to  white  men's  return  to 
nature,  I  had  never  seen  a  man  who  so  well  fitted  into 
the  landscape  as  the  owner  of  the  ape.  He  was  the 
faun  to  the  curling  locks  and  the  pointed  ears,  with 
not  a  trace  of  the  satyr;  all  youth  and  grace  and  radi- 
ance. 

He  walked  on  before  me  to  the  fare,  and,  opening  the 
door,  bade  me  welcome.  The  house  differed  from  the 
aboriginal  in  a  wooden  floor  and  three  walls  of  wire 


468  MYSTIC  ISLES 

screen  above  four  feet  of  wainscot.  The  roof  was  lofty, 
of  plaited  pandanus-leaves,  with  large  spaces  under  the 
eaves  for  the  circulation  of  air ;  but  the  immediate  sug- 
gestion was  of  an  aviary,  a  cage  thirty  feet  square. 
Attached  to  this  room  was  a  lean-to  kitchen,  and  near  by, 
hidden  behind  the  cage,  was  another  native  house  for 
sleeping.  The  aviary  was  the  living-  and  dining-quar- 
ters,  protected  from  all  insect  pests,  and  an  arbor  cov- 
ered with  vines  led  to  the  water. 

Many  canvases  were  about,  on  an  easel  an  unfinished 
group  of  three  Tahitian  boys,  and  a  case  of  books  against 
the  one  solid  wall. 

Half  a  dozen  Tahitian  youths  were  lolling  outside  in 
the  shade,  and  one,  at  the  request  of  the  host,  led  up  the 
horse  and  the  boy  who  guarded  it.  The  child  skirted 
the  circumference  of  the  monkey's  swing,  and  then,  a 
few  feet  away,  squatted  to  regard  the  animal  with  in- 
tense surprise  and  interest. 

"Uritaata,"  he  said;  "I  never  saw  one  before,  but  I 
have  read  in  my  school-book  that  they  have  those  dog- 
men  in  French  colonies." 

Uri  means  dog  and  taata  man,  and  the  compound 
name  was  that  which  sprang  to  the  lips  of  the  Tahitians 
on  seeing  a  monkey,  just  as  they  called  the  horse  puaa 
horo  fenua,  the  pig  that  runs  on  the  earth,  and  the  goat, 
horo  niho}  the  pig  with  horns.  The  pig  and  the  dog 
were  the  only  land  mammals  they  knew  before  the  white 
arrived.  The  race-track  near  Papeete  was  puaa  horo 
fenua  faa  titi  auraa.  If  a  pig  could  talk,  he  would  say 
that  man  was  a  wickeder  and  stronger  pig.  Jehovah 
has  whiskers  like  a  Rabbi.  The  Rabbis  made  him  like 
themselves.  Man  has  no  other  ideal. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  469 

The  Tahitian  youth  addressed  the  Greek  god  as 
T'yonni,  which  was  an  effort  to  say  John,  and  I  adopted 
it  instanter,  as  he  did  my  own  Maru.  T'yonni  said  that 
Uritaata  was  the  bane  of  his  existence  at  Tautira. 
After  building  his  fare  he  had  been  called  to  America, 
and  had  danced  in  Chinatown  the  night  before  his 
steamship  departed  for  his  return  to  Papeete.  He  re- 
membered obscurely  drinking  grappo  with  a  deep-sea 
sailor,  and  had  awakened  in  his  berth,  the  vessel  already 
at  sea,  and  Uritaata  asleep  at  his  feet.  Many  Tahitians, 
he  said,  had  never  seen  such  a  fabulous  brute,  and 
T'yonni  had  stirred  in  them  a  mood  of  dissatisfaction  by 
telling  that  their  forefathers  had  descended  from  sim- 
ilar beings. 

"How  about  Atamu  and  Eva?"  they  had  asked  the 
pastors. 

Those  conservatists  had  replied  emphatically  that 
Adam  and  Eve,  the  first  man  and  woman,  were  created 
by  God,  which  agreed  thoroughly  with  the  Tahitian 
legends,  and  after  that  T'yonni's  generosity  was  ranked 
higher  than  his  knowledge.  He  laughed  over  the  stories 
as  we  sat  at  breakfast  with  my  coachman  in  the  kitchen. 
T'yonni  said  that  the  deacon  of  the  Protestant  church 
expressed  a  belief  that  the  Paumotuans  or  even  the 
French  might  have  followed  the  Darwinian  course  of 
descent,  but  that  Tahitians  could  not  swallow  a  doc- 
trine that  linked  them  in  relationship  with  Uritaata. 
The  Tongans,  Polynesians  like  themselves,  had  a  tradi- 
tion that  God  made  the  Tongan  first,  then  the  pig,  and 
lastly  the  white  man. 

"He  quoted  the  Tongan  with  compassion  for  me," 
said  T'yonni.  "And  now  about  a  place  where  you  can 


470  MYSTIC  ISLES 

live.  Choti,  a  painter,  whose  pictures  you  see  around 
here,  lives  with  the  school-teacher  up  the  road,  and  he 
might  find  you  a  place.  He  's  an  American,  as  I  an\ 
and  I  suppose  you,  too." 

I  raised  my  glass  to  our  native  land,  and  finding  that 
the  boy  of  Taravao  had  eaten  his  fill  of  fei  and  fish,  I 
said  ariana  to  T'yonni,  and  drove  to  Choti's.  The 
painter  was  on  the  veranda  of  a  cottage,  finishing  the 
late  breakfast.  He  received  me  with  enthusiasm. 
Tall,  very  spare,  and  his  skin  pale  despite  his  wearing 
only  a  pareu  and  never  a  hat,  Choti's  black  eyes  shone 
under  long,  black  hair,  and  over  a  Montmartre  whisker 
that  covered  his  boyish  face  from  his  chiseled  nose. 

"Hello!"  he  said.     "Come  and  have  dfijeuner?" 

The  manner  of  both  T'yonni  and  Choti,  while  hospit- 
able, and  their  glances  at  my  bags,  showed  a  probable 
wonderment  of  my  intentions. 

Was  I  an  average  tourist  or  loafer  come  to  put  an 
unknown  quantity  in  their  smoothly  working  problem 
of  a  pleasant  life  in  this  Eden?  The  artist  must  have 
looked  me  over  for  indications  of  familiarity  with  brush 
and  palette. 

I  replied  to  Choti  that  I  had  breakfasted  with  T'yonni, 
and  he  smiled  at  my  knowledge  of  his  friend's  Tautira 
name. 

"How  about  getting  .an  apartment  or  a  suite  of 
rooms?"  I  inquired. 

Choti  sucked  the  last  particle  of  poi  from  his  fore- 
finger, dipped  it  into  a  shell  of  water,  shook  hands,  and 
against  my  pleadings,  accompanied  me  to  the  house  of 
Ori-a-Ori,  the  chief  of  the  district.  The  chief,  an  ex- 
cessively tall  man,  quite  six  and  a  half  feet  and  big  all 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  471 

over,  but  not  fat,  like  many  natives,  was  very  dark  and 
slightly  grizzled.  He  had  a  singular  solemnity  of  ad- 
dress, a  benignity  and  detachment  which  were  the  ex- 
ternals of  a  thoughtful,  simple,  generous  nature,  no 
longer  interested  deeply  in  trifles.  His  house  was  to- 
ward the  farther  end  of  the  main  street,  and  set  upon 
a  spacious  lawn  a  hundred  feet  from  the  street,  which, 
by  the  same  token,  was  also  a  lawn,  for  there  was  no 
sign  of  the  unadorned  earth.  So  little  wheeled  traffic 
was  there  that  bare  feet  walked  on  a  matting  of  grass 
and  plants  as  soft  as  seaweed  on  the  beach.  The  street 
was  bordered  with  cocoanuts  and  pandanus,  and  the 
chief's  dwelling  had  about  it  breadfruit,  papayas,  and 
cocoanuts.  The  grounds  were  divided  from  neighbors' 
parks  by  hedges  of  tiare  Tahiti,  gardenias,  roses,  and 
red  and  white  oleanders.  I  drew  in  their  perfume  as 
Ori-a-Ori  said,  "la  ora  na!"  and  took  and  held  my  hand 
a  moment,  while  his  grave  eyes  studied  my  face  in  all 
kindliness. 

Choti  put  him  the  question  of  my  habitation,  and  he 
instantly  offered  me  either  a  room  in  his  own  house  or  a 
small,  native  building  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  road 
and  nearer  the  beach.  We  walked  over,  and  found  it 
unoccupied.  It  was  a  bird-cage,  all  one  room,  with  a 
thatch  of  pandanus  and  a  floor  of  dried  grass  covered 
with  mats.  The  walls  were  of  split  bamboo,  like  reeds, 
and  the  sun  and  air  penetrated  it  through  and  through ; 
but  hanging  mats  were  arranged,  one  as  a  door,  and 
others  to  keep  out  the  rain.  It  was  exactly  suited  for 
sleeping  and  lounging  purposes,  and  the  chief  said  that 
I  could  cook  in  a  convenient  hut.  I  brought  in  my  be- 
longings, which  included  bedding,  and  in  half  an  hour 


472  MYSTIC  ISLES 

was  enough  at  home  to  dismiss  the  coachman  and  his 
equipage,  and  to  lie  down,  as  was  my  wont  during  the 
heat  of  the  day.  I  put  my  bed  in  the  doorway,  and  be- 
fore I  fell  into  my  first  sleep  at  Tautira,  filled  my  eyes 
with  the  blue  of  the  shimmering  lagoon  and  the  hoary 
line  of  the  reef.  I  sank  into  dreams,  with  the  slumbrous 
roar  upon  the  coral  barrier  like  the  thunder  of  a  sea 
god's  rolling  drum. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

My  life  at  Tautira — The  way  I  cook  my  food — Ancient  Tahitian  sports — 
Swimming  and  fishing — A  night  hunt  for  shrimp  and  eels. 

T'YOXXI  and  Choti  were  the  only  aliens  except 
myself  in  all  Tautira,  nor  did  others  come  during 
my  stay.  The  steamships,  spending  only  twen- 
ty-four hours  in  Papeete  port  every  four  or  five  weeks, 
sent  no  trippers,  and  the  bureaucrats,  traders,  and  so- 
journers  in  Papeete  apparently  were  not  aware  of  the 
enchantment  at  our  end  of  the  island.  T'yonni  had 
found  Tautira  only  after  four  or  five  voyages  to  Tahiti, 
and  Choti  had  first  come  as  his  guest.  T'yonni  had  no 
art  but  that  of  living,  while  Choti  had  studied  in  Paris, 
and  was  bent  on  finding  in  these  scenes  something 
strong  and  uncommon  in  painting,  as  Gauguin,  now 
dead,  had  found.  They  lived  separately,  T'yonni 
studying  the  language  and  the  people, — he  had  been  a 
master  at  a  boys'  school  in  the  East, — and  the  artist 
painting  many  hours  a  day.  But  we  three  joined  with 
the  villagers  in  pleasure,  and  in  pulling  at  the  nets  in 
the  lagoon. 

The  routine  of  my  day  was  to  awake  about  six  o'clock 
and  see  the  sun  swinging  slowly  up  out  of  the  sea  and 
hesitating  a  moment  on  the  level  of  the  horizon,  the 
foliage  brightened  with  his  beams.  I  sprang  from  my 
bed,  washed  my  hands  and  face,  and  hastened  to  the 
fare  umu,  the  kitchen  in  a  grove  of  pandanus  trees,  a 
few  steps  away.  There  from  a  pile  of  cocoanut  husks 

473 


474  MYSTIC  ISLES 

and  bits  of  jetsam  I  selected  fuel,  which  I  placed  be- 
tween a  group  of  coral  rocks  on  which  were  several  iron 
bars.  I  lit  the  fire,  and  put  into  a  pot  three  tablespoon- 
fuls  of  finely  ground  coffee  and  two  cups  of  fresh  water. 
The  pot  was  a  percolator,  and  beside  it  I  placed  a  frying- 
pan,  and  in  it  sliced  bananas  and  a  lump  of  tinned  but- 
ter from  New  Zealand.  Leaving  these  inanimate  things 
to  react  under  the  dissolving  effect  of  the  blaze,  I  ran 
to  the  beach,  where  I  watched  the  sunrise.  There  re- 
curred to  me  the  mornings  and  evenings  in  the  Orient 
when  I  had  seen  the  Parsees,  the  fire-worshippers  of 
India,  offer  their  devotions,  standing  or  kneeling  on 
their  rugs  on  the  seashore.  I,  too,  raised  my  hands  in 
silent  admiration  of  the  mother  of  all  life.  Then  I  ob- 
served about  me  the  hurry  and  scurry  of  the  dwellers 
on  the  sands  and  in  the  water.  Small  hermit-crabs  in 
shells  many  sizes  too  big  for  them  toddled  about,  land- 
crabs  rushed  frantically  and  awkwardly  for  their  holes, 
and  Portuguese  men-of-war  sailed  by  the  coast,  luffing 
to  avoid  casting  up  on  the  beach.  A  brief  period  of 
observation,  and  I  dashed  back  to  the  fare  umu,  and 
trimmed  the  fire.  When  cooked,  I  brought  my  food 
to  my  house,  where  I  had  a  low  table  like  a  Japanese 
zen,  and  with  rolls  from  the  Chinese  store  I  made  my 
first  meal,  adding  oranges,  papayas  and  pineapple. 

From  the  doorway,  for  all  I  encompassed  in  my  view, 
I  might  have  been  the  sole  human  on  this  island.  I 
could  look  to  the  reef  and  far  across  the  lagcon  to 
Hitiaa  or  down  the  beach,  but  from  that  spot  no  other 
house  was  in  sight.  If  I  went  around  the  house,  I  was 
almost  on  the  Broadway  of  Tautira,  the  home  of  Ori-a- 
Ori  before  me,  and  a  coral  church  close  to  it,  with  other 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  475 

buildings  and  groves  toward  the  mango  copse  of 
T'yonni.  On  the  bushes  huge  nets  were  drying,  and 
canoes  were  drawn  up  into  the  purau  and  pandanus 
clumps.  As  the  day  advanced,  the  artless  incidents  of 
the  settlement  aroused  my  interest.  I  saw  about  me 
scenes  and  affairs  which  had  caused  a  famous  poet  after 
a  week  or  two  in  this  very  lieu  to  write : 

Here  found  I  all  I  had  forecast: 

The  long  roll  of  the  sapphire  sea 

That  keeps  the  land's  virginity; 

The  stalwart  giants  of  the  wood 

Laden  with  toys  and  flowers  and  food ; 

The  precious  forest  pouring  out 

To  compass  the  whole  town  about ; 

The  town  itself  with  streets  of  lawn, 

Loved  of  the  moon,  blessed  by  the  dawn, 

Where  the  brown  children  all  the  day 

Keep  up  a  ceaseless  noise  of  play, 

Play  in  the  sun,  play  in  the  rain, 

Nor  ever  quarrel  or  complain ; 

And  late   at   night   in    the   woods   of  fruit, 

Hark!  do  you  hear  the  passing  flute? 

The  school-house  was  near  to  the  master's  home  where 
Choti  lived,  and  often  I  heard  the  children  learning  by 
singsong,  the  way  I  myself  had  been  taught  the  arith- 
metical tables.  The  teacher  was  Alfred,  a  Tahitian, 
who,  being  a  scholar,  must  have  a  French  name,  and 
wear  clothes  and  shoes  when  in  his  classes,  but  who  very 
sensibly  sat  with  Choti  upon  his  veranda  in  only  his 
pareu.  Much  of  the  time  the  pupils  played  in  the 
grounds,  hopscotch  and  wrestling  on  stilts  being  favorite 
games.  Alfred  regretted  that  the  ancient  Tahitian 


476  MYSTIC  ISLES 

games  which  his  grandfather  played  were  out  of  style. 
Among  these  was  a  variation  of  golf,  with  curved  sticks, 
and  a  ball  made  of  strips  of  native  cloth;  and  foot-ball 
with  a  ball  of  banana-leaves  tightly  rolled.  Grown-ups 
in  those  Tahitian  times  were  experts  in  all  these  sports, 
women  excelling  at  foot-ball,  with  thirty  on  each  side, 
and  captains,  backs,  and  guards,  or  similar  participants, 
and  with  hard  struggles  for  the  ball,  which,  as  the  games 
were  played  on  the  beach,  often  had  to  be  fought  fcr 
in  the  sea.  The  spectators,  thousands,  did  not  view  the 
contest  from  seats,  but  literally  followed  it  as  it  surged 
up  and  down  within  the  space  of  a  mile. 

Wrestling  was  the  most  notable  amusement,  and  box- 
ing was  fashionable  for  women,  some  of  whom  were 
skilled  in  fistic  combats.     The  wrestlers,  as  their  Greek 
prototypes,  first  invoked  the  favor  of  the  gods,  and 
offered  sacrifices  when  victorious.     The  palestra  was  on 
a  lawn  by  the  sea,  and  in  formal  contests  district  cham- 
pions met  those  of  other  districts,  and  islands  competed 
for  supremacy  with  other  islands.     The  maona  wore 
a  breech-clout  and  a  coat  of  cocoanut  oil  freshly  laid  on, 
but  not  sand,  as  in  the  Olympiads.     When  one  was 
thrown,  the  victor's  friends  shouted  in  triumph  and  sang 
and  danced  about  him  to  the  music  of  tom-toms,  while 
the  backers  of  the  loser  met  the  demonstrations  with  ridi- 
cule.    This  was  much  like  the  organized  yelling  on  our 
gridirons ;  and  when  the  wrestling  began  again  there  was 
instant  silence.     It  was  all  good-humored,  as  was  the 
boxing. 

Spear-throwing  and  stone-slinging  at  targets  were 
both  fun  and  preparation  for  war,  for  in  the  battles 
the  slingers  took  the  van.  The  stones  were  here,  as  in 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  477 

the  Marquesas,  as  big  as  hens'  eggs,  and  rounded  by  the 
action  of  the  streams  in  which  they  were  found.  Braided 
cocoanut-fiber  formed  the  sling,  or  flax  was  used,  and 
looped  about  the  wrist  the  sling  was  flung  down  the 
back,  whirled  about  the  head,  and  the  missile  shot  with 
deadly  force  and  accuracy. 

Archery  was  associated  with  religion  in  Tahiti,  as  in 
Japan,  between  which  countries  there  are  many  strange 
similarities  of  custom.  The  costumes  of  the  bowmen 
and  their  weapons  were  housed  in  the  temple,  and  kept 
by  devotees,  and  were  removed  and  returned  with  cere- 
monies. The  bows,  less  than  six  feet,  the  arrows,  half 
that  long,  were  never  used  in  war  or  for  striking  a  mark, 
but  merely  for  distance  shooting,  and  the  experts  were 
credited  with  reaching  a  thousand  feet. 

Tatini  had  pointed  out  to  me,  when  we  walked  the 
peninsula  of  Taravao,  a  projecting  rock,  marked  with 
deep-worn  grooves,  from  which  the  Tahitians  once  flew 
very  large  kites.  These  were  tied  to  the  rocks,  and  the 
ropes  of  cocoanut  sennit  in  the  course  of  hundreds  of 
years  had  worn  the  stones  away.  Often  when  the  wind 
was  favorable,  they  intrusted  themselves  to  their  kites, 
and  slipping  the  ropes,  flew  to  the  opposite  side  of  the 
bay,  forerunners  in  the  air  of  a  certain  Lyonnais  of 
1783,  and  contemporaneous  with  the  Siamese  who  cen- 
turies ago  indulged  their  levitative  dreams  by  leaping 
with  parachutes. 

Alfred  had  registered  all  these  obsolete  things  in  his 
memory,  while  most  Tahitians  had  no  detailed  knowl- 
edge of  them,  being  crammed  with  the  lore  of  theology, 
of  saints,  of  automobiles,  and  moving  pictures,  and  prize- 
fights for  money.  Matatini  Afaraauia,  son  of  Faaruia, 


478  MYSTIC  ISLES 

of  chiefly  descent,  a  boy  of  seven,  and  of  a  guileless,  be- 
witching disposition,  made  me  his  intimate  friend,  and 
through  his  sharp  eyes  I  discovered  phenomena  that 
might  have  escaped  my  untutored  mind.  He  lifted  a 
stone,  and  beneath  it  was  a  spider  larger  than  a  taran- 
tula. It  was  tabu  to  Tahitians,  harmless,  and  a  vora- 
cious eater  of  insects.  Spiders  are  larger  in  these  trop- 
ics than  elsewhere,  and  here,  too,  the  male  was  smaller 
than  the  female.  Being  seized  and  slain  and  devoured 
by  his  lady  love  even  in  the  very  transports  of  husbandly 
affection,  it  had  been  bitten  in  on  his  subconscious  sensi- 
bilities that  diminutiveness  was  life-saving,  and  natural 
selection  had  made  him  inferior  in  size  to  his  cannibal 
mate.  He  had  a  very  shrinking  attitude  in  her  pres- 
ence, as  Socrates  must  have  affected  about  Xantippe. 

At  eleven  o'clock  of  the  forenoon  I,  with  Matatini 
and  Raiere,  a  youth  of  twenty,  strolled  down  the  grassy 
street  to  the  garden  of  Alfred,  where  Choti  might  be 
painting  under  the  trees,  and  if  a  halloo  did  not  bring 
him  bounding  to  us,  we  went  on  to  T'yonni's,  where  he 
would  surely  be,  either  under  the  mango  trees  or  in  the 
salon.  Choti  had  many  canvases  completed,  some  six 
feet  long,  and  he  also  did  excellent  silver-point  heads 
of  the  villagers.  Tahitians  were  indifferent  models,  as 
they  were  not  much  interested  in  pictures,  not  seeing 
objects,  as  we  do,  and  found  posing  irksome.  Only 
Choti's  friendship  for  them,  his  bonhomie,  and  many 
merry  jokes  in  their  tongue  could  keep  them  still  for 
his  purposes. 

T'yonni's  house  was  half  a  mile  from  my  own.  A 
quarter  of  a  mile  farther,  and  the  same  distance  from 
the  junction  of  lagoon  and  river,  we  had  our  swimming- 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  479 

place.  On  an  acre  or  two  of  grass  and  moss,  removed 
from  any  habitation,  grew  a  score  of  lofty  cocoas,  and 
under  these  we  threw  off  our  pareus  or  trousers  and 
shirts.  The  bank  of  the  stream  was  a  fathom  from  the 
water  which  was  brackish  at  high  tide  and  sweet  at  low. 
With  a  short  run  and  a  curving  leap  we  plunged  into 
the  flowing  water.  It  was  refreshing  at  the  hottest 
hour.  The  Tahitians  seldom  dived  head  first,  as  we 
did,  but  jumped  feet  foremost,  and  the  women  in  a 
sitting  posture,  which  made  a  great  splash,  but  pre- 
vented their  gowns  from  rising.  As  I  remarked  before, 
we  three  Americans  bathed  stark  when  with  men,  but 
the  modest  Tahitian  men  never  for  a  moment  uncovered 
themselves,  but  wore  their  pareus.  Captain  Cook  said 
that  in  their  houses  he  had  not  seen  a  single  instance 
of  immodesty,  though  families  slept  in  one  room.  Choti 
avowed  that  he  had  to  make  love  to  his  girl  models  to 
induce  them  to  pose  in  the  altogether,  for  money  would 
not  make  them  adopt  the  garb  of  Venus. 

The  Tahitians  did  not  enter  the  sea  for  pleasure. 
The  rivers  and  brooks  were  their  bathing-  and  resting- 
places.  They  attributed  sicknesses  to  the  too  frequent 
touch  of  salt  water.  They  had  not  the  habitude  of 
swimming  within  the  lagoons,  as  at  Hawaii ;  it  was  not 
with  them  an  exercise  or  luxury,  but  a  part  of  their 
every-day  activities  in  fishing  and  canoeing.  A  farmer 
after  his  day's  work  does  not  run  foot-races.  Yet  in 
gatherings  these  people  often  vied  for  supremacy  in 
every  sort  of  sea  sport,  and  beforetime,  in  bays  free  of 
coral,  developed  an  astonishing  skill  in  surf-riding  on 
boards,  in  canoes,  and  without  artificial  support.  Such 
skill  was  ranked  on  a  par  with  or  perhaps  the  same  as 


480  MYSTIC  ISLES 

proficiency  in  the  pastimes  of  war,  as  did  the  Greeks, 
who  addressed  Diagoras,  after  he  and  his  two  sons  had 
been  crowned  in  the  arena:  "Die,  for  thou  hast  nothing 
short  of  divinity  to  desire."  These  ambitions  had  been 

w 

ended  in  Tahiti  by  the  frowns  of  the  missionaries,  to 
whom  athletics  were  a  species  of  diabolical  possession, 
unworthy  souls  destined  for  hell  or  heaven,  with  but  a 
brief  span  to  avert  their  birthright  of  damnation  in  sack- 
cloth and  ashes. 

We  entered  the  river  regularly  at  eleven  and  four, 
but  Choti,  T'yonni,  and  I  also  swam  in  the  lagoon  at  the 
mouth  of  the  river,  and  never  suffered  bad  consequences 
Unless  we  cut  or  scraped  ourselves  on  coral.  About 
noon  I  prepared  my  dejeuner  a  la  fourchette,  and  had 
a  wide  choice  of  shrimp,  eels,  fish,  taro,  chicken,  bread- 
fruit, yams,  and  all  the  other  fruits.  The  solicitude  of 
the  homesick  missionaries  had  added  to  those  indigenous, 
oranges,  limes,  shaddocks,  citrons,  tamarinds,  guavas, 
custard  apples,  peaches,  figs,  grapes,  pineapples,  water- 
melons, pumpkins,  cucumbers  and  cabbages.  They  had 
grown  these  foreign  flora  many  years  before  they  made 
sprout  a  single  shoot  of  Christianity. 

I  invented  a  stove  from  a  five-gallon  oil  tin.  With  a 
can-opener  I  cut  a  strip  out  on  opposite  sides  ten  inches 
from  the  bottom,  and  laid  two  iron  bars  across,  and 
under  them,  inside  the  receptacle,  built  a  fire.  Upon 
this  I  cooked  my  coffee  in  the  percolator,  while  upon 
the  earth  and  hot  stones  other  delicious  dishes  boiled, 
stewed,  and  fried.  If  I  baked,  I  used  the  native  oven 
in  the  ground,  with  earth  and  leaves  inclosing. 

I  passed  hours  on  the  reef  with  Raiere  and  Matatini 
or  in  canoes,  drawing  the  nets  and  catching  shrimp  and 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  4-81 

eels.  In  the  lagoon  we  usually  secured  a  plentiful 
draft  of  fish,  brilliant  creatures  of  silver  and  crimson, 
as  they  leaped  from  the  sea  into  the  nets,  and  were  later 
tumbled  into  canoes  or  on  the  beach.  The  orare,  aturi, 
and  paaiherc  were  like  the  gleaming  mesh  purses  worn 
by  the  women  of  our  cities,  but  the  ihi  was  as  red  as  the 
beard  of  the  Greek  god  T'yonni.  These  fish  we  kept 
in  tubs  of  sea  water,  alive  and  even  moderately  happy 
until  cooked. 

Saturday's  parties  went  far  into  the  woods  to  gather 
a  choice  kind  of  fei,  and  the  oranges  and  limes  of  the 
foot-hills.  Raiere,  Matatini,  and  another  boy,  Tahitua, 
hunted  the  shrimp  and  eel.  After  our  suppers,  about 
seven  or  eight  o'clock,  when  it  was  quite  dark,  we 
equipped  ourselves  for  the  chase,  each  with  a  torch  and 
two  or  three  lances,  all  but  Tahitua,  who  carried  a  bag. 

We  followed  the  grand  chemin,  as  Alfred  called  it, 
along  the  lagoon  and  past  the  clump  of  trees  in  which 
lived  Uritaata,  whom  we  saw  sleeping  peacefully  a 
dozen  feet  from  the  earth  in  the  branches  of  a  mango. 
He  lay  on  his  back,  with  his  arms  above  his  little  head, 
and  one  foot  grasping  a  leaf,  and  did  not  arouse  to  notice 
our  passing.  The  Tahitians  gave  him  wide  avoidance, 
with  a  mutter  of  exorcism.  We  descended  the  bank, 
and  entered  the  stream  at  a  point  just  below  the  last 
hut  of  the  village. 

Raiere  cast  a  glow  upon  the  water  with  his  torch,  and 
we  saw  the  shrimp  resting  upon  the  bottom  or  leaping 
into  the  air  in  foot-wide  bounds.  He  poised  his  small- 
est lance  and  thrust  it  with  a  very  quick,  but  exact, 
motion,  so  that  almost  every  time  he  impaled  a  shrimp 
upon  its  prongs.  The  oura  was  instantly  withdrawn, 


482  MYSTIC  ISLES 

and  Tahitua  received  it  in  his  bag.     All  but  he  then 
began  in  earnest  the  quest  of  the  bonnes  bouches.     We 
separated  a  hundred  feet  or  so,  and  treading  slowly  the 
pebbled  or  bouldered  and  often  slippery  floor  of  the 
river,  keeping  to  the  shallow  places,  we  lighted  the 
rippling  waters  with  our  torches,  and  sought  to  spear 
the  agile  and  fearful  prey.     The  oura  lances  were  five 
feet  long,  not  thicker  than  a  fat  finger,  and  fitted  with 
three  slender  prongs  of  iron — nails  filed  upon  the  basalt 
rock.     One  saw  the  faintest  glimpse  of  a  shrimp  on  the 
bottom,  or  a  red  shadow  as  the  animal  darted  past,  and 
only  the  swiftest  coordination  of  mind  and  body  won 
the  prize.     Whereas  Raiere  and  even  Matatini  secured 
most  of  those  they  struck  at,  I  made  many  laughable 
failures.     I  missed  the  still  body  through  the  deceptive 
shadows  of  the  water,  or  failed  to  strike  home  because 
of  the  lightning-like  movements  of  the  alarmed  shrimp. 
The  sport  was  fascinating.     The  water  was  as  warm 
as  fresh  milk,  transparent,  and  with  here  a  gentle  and 
there  a  rapid  current.     A  million  stars  glittered  in  a 
sky  that  was  very  near,  and  the  trees  and  vegetation 
were  in  mysterious  shadows.     Only  when  our  torches 
lit  the  darkness  did  we  perceive  the  actual  forms  of  the 
cocoanuts,  mango-  and  pu raw-trees  which  bordered  the 
banks  and  climbed  the  hills  into  the  distance.     The 
puraus  often  seemed  like  banians,  stretching  far  over 
the  water  in  strange  and  ghostlike  shapes,  with  twisting 
branches  and  gnarled  trunks  that  in  the  obscurity  gave 
a  startling  suggestion  of  the  fetish  growths  of  the  an- 
cients.    I  felt  a  faint  touch  of  fear  as  I  groped  through 
the  stream,  now  and  again  falling  into  a  deep  hole  or 
stumbling  over  a  stone  or  buried  branch,  and  I  looked 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  483 

often  to  reassure  myself  that  Raiere's  gigantic  figure 
loomed  in  the  farther  gloom.  There  was  no  danger 
save  in  me ;  the  scene  was  peaceful,  but  for  our  own  dis- 
turbance of  the  night  and  the  river,  and  not  even  a 
breeze  fluttered  the  dark  leaves  of  the  trees.  The 
mountain  rose  steeply  at  our  backs,  and  constellations 
appeared  to  rest  upon  its  shadowy  crest. 

At  last  we  came  to  a  place  where  a  tiny  natural  dam 
caused  the  stream  to  break  in  glints  of  white  on  a  crooked 
line  of  rocks,  and  pausing  there,  Raiere  suddenly  bent 
over.  He  called  peremptorily  to  Tahitua  to  bring  him 
the  big  lance,  which  the  little  boy  carried  along  with  the 


"Puhi!  Haere  mai!"  he  said  in  a  low,  but  urgent, 
voice. 

Tahitua  flew  through  the  ripples,  and  we  all  hurried 
to  see  the  new  adventure. 

"Puhi!  Puhi!"  again  said  Raiere,  and  pointed  to  the 
rocks.  We  cautiously  stepped  that  way,  and  saw,  ap- 
parently asleep  at  the  foot  of  the  stones,  a  tangle  of 
huge  eels.  Their  black  and  gray  slate-colored  bodies 
lay  inert  in  folds,  as  if  they  had  gathered  for  a  night's 
good  slumber,  and  not  until  Raiere,  with  unerring  aim 
thrust  the  great  spear,  with  its  half-dozen  points  of  iron, 
into  one  of  them,  did  the  others  scatter  in  a  mad  swTim 
for  safety.  The  mere  transfixing  of  the  eel  did  not  al- 
ways mean  his  securing,  but  another  of  us  must  put  a 
lance  in  the  contorting  curves  and  with  quick  and  dex- 
terous motion  lift  him  to  the  bank  where  his  struggles 
might  be  ended  with  knife  or  rock.  The  release  of  him 
for  a  second  might  permit  him  to  wriggle  to  the  river 
and  escape. 


484  MYSTIC  ISLES 

With  the  finding  of  the  first  eel,  began  an  hour's 
search  for  his  fellows.  We  had  struck  their  haunt,  but 
they  did  not  yield  us  half  a  dozen  of  their  kind  without 
diligent,  though  pleasant,  work.  We  splashed  to  places 
when  one  sang  out  that  an  eel  was  in  sight,  and  pursued 
them  in  their  divagations  through  the  river,  trusting  to 
drive  them  into  eddies  or  under  the  fringe  of  plants 
hanging  from  the  banks  where  we  hunted  them  out. 

In  a  couple  of  hours  we  found  ourselves  with  a  full 
creel  of  eels  and  oura,  and  I  a  trifle  dismayed  at  facing 
the  march  home.  Raiere  relieved  Tahitua  of  the  bur- 
den, and  a  song  shortened  the  way.  I  gave  them  the 
ditty  of  the  New-Zealand  Maori,  who  metaphorically 
toasted  his  enemy: 

O,  the  saltiness  of  my  mouth 

In  drinking  the  liquid  brains  of  Nuku 

Whence  welled  up  his  wrath ! 

His  ears  which  heard  the  deliberations ! 

Mine  enemy  shall  go  headlong 

Into  the  stomach  of  Hinewai! 

My  teeth  shall  devour  Kaukau! 

The  three  hundred  and  forty  of  my  enemy 

Shall  be  huddled  in  a  heap  in  my  trough; 

Te  Hika  and  his  multitudes 

Shall  boil  in  my  pot! 

The  whole  tribe  shall  be 

My  sweet  morsel  to  finish  with !     E ! 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

In  the  days  of  Captain  Cook — The  first  Spanish  missionaries — Difficulties 
of  converting  the  heathens — Wars  over  Christianity — Ori-a-Ori,  the 
chief,  friend  of  Stevenson — We  read  the  Bible  together — The  church 
and  the  himene. 

CAPTAIN  COOK  barely  escaped  shipwreck 
here.  The  Bay  of  Tautira  is  marked  on  the 
French  map,  "Mouillage  de  Cook,"  the  anchor- 
age of  Cook.  That  indomitable  mariner  risked  his  ves- 
sels in  many  dangerous  roadsteads  to  explore  and  to  pro- 
cure fresh  supplies  for  his  crews.  When  he  had  ex- 
hausted the  surplus  of  pigs,  cocoanuts,  fowls,  and  green 
stuff  at  one  port,  he  sailed  for  another.  Scurvy,  the 
relentless  familiar  of  the  sailor  on  the  deep  sea,  made  no 
peril  or  labor  too  severe.  At  night  Cook's  ships  ap- 
proached Oati-piha,  or  Ohetepeha,  Bay,  as  his  log-writ- 
ers termed  this  lagoon,  from  the  Vaitapiha  River,  flow- 
ing into  it,  and  the  dawn  found  them  in  a  calm  a  mile  and 
a  half  from  the  reef. 

They  put  down  boats  and  tried  to  tow  off  their  ships, 
but  the  tide  set  them  in  more  and  more  toward  the  rocks. 
For  many  hours  they  despaired  of  saving  the  vessels, 
though  they  used  "warping-machines,"  anchors,  and 
kedges.  From  my  cook-house  I  saw  where  they  had 
struggled  for  their  lives  with  breaker,  current,  and 
chartless  bottom.  A  light  breeze  off  the  land  saved 
them,  and  in  another  day  they  returned  to  "obtain  co- 
coanuts, plantains,  bananas,  apples,  yams  and  other 

4S5 


486  MYSTIC  ISLES 

roots,  which  were  exchanged  for  nails  and  beads." 
From  the  very  pool  into  which  I  dived  Cook's  hearties 
filled  their  casks  with  fresh  water,  after  shooting  "two 
muskets  and  a  great  gun  along  the  shore  to  intimidate 
the  Indians  wrho  were  obstinate." 

Cook,  on  his  third  voyage  to  Tahiti,  found  here  a 
large  wooden  cross  on  which  was  inscribed  in  Latin: 

Christ  conquered 
Charles  the  Th!jd  Emperor 


It  wras  plain  that  Spaniards  had  erected  the  cross,  for 
Charles  III  was  King  of  Spain.  These  English  tars 
hated  the  dons,  with  whom  they  had  but  recently  been 
embattled.  When  they  were  convinced  that  a  Spanish 
ship  had  been  at  Tautira  twice  since  they  had  departed, 
and  that  the  builders  of  the  cross  had  earned  the  respect 
and  affection  of  the  natives,  the  Britons,  in  their  old  way 
of  fair  and  assertive  dealing,  left  the  cross  standing  after 
carving  on  the  reverse  in  good  Latin  as  a  claim  of  pre- 
discovery  : 

George  III  King 
1767,  1769,  1773,  1774,  1777. 

Two  Spanish  priests,  they  learned,  had  lived  in  the 
village  between  the  arrival  and  return  of  the  Spanish 
ships  from  Peru.  They  left  no  imprint  of  their  Catho- 
lic religion  except  the  cross  and  a  memory  of  kindness; 
and  why  they  resigned  their  mission  to  Tahiti  is  not 
known.  The  British  missionaries  did  not  come  until 
1797,  on  the  Duff.  They  planted  gardens  and  worked 
diligently  and  prayed.  They  had  vast  patience,  and 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  487 

confidence  in  their  all-powerful  and  avenging  God,  and 
a  rapt  devotion  to  his  son,  who  forgave  the  sins  of  those 
who  adopted  His  faith.     Their  ideals  were  as  fixed  as 
the  stars,  and  their  courage  superior  to  the  daily  dis- 
couragements of  their  lives  and  continuous  hardships  of 
separation  from  home.     But  they  could  not  break  the 
strength  of  the  superstitions  of  the  pagans.     A  dozen 
years  these  English  ecclesiastics  delved  in  their  gardens, 
built  their  houses,  and  begged  Jehovah  and  Jesus  to 
give  them  victory.     Five  years  they  mourned  without 
message  or  aid  from  England.     Their  clothes  were  in 
tatters,  and  as  covering  their  whole  bodies  with  Euro- 
pean garments  from  feet  to  scalp,  except  face  and  hands, 
was  a  rigid  prescription  of  their  own  morals  and  an 
example  to  the  almost  nude  Tahitians,  they  suffered 
keenly  from  shame.     When,  after  half  a  decade,  a  brig 
arrived,  its  supplies  were  found  ruined  by  salt  water  and 
mold.     The  poor  clerics,  in  an  earthly  paradise,  but  hos- 
tile atmosphere,  with  little  to  report  to  an  unheeding 
England  save  the  depths  of  the  untilled  field  of  heath- 
enry and  depravity,  might  not  have  been  blamed  if  they, 
too,  had  given  up  their  mission.     The  fruits  of  twelve 
years  of  gardening  and  horticulture  were  destroyed  in 
a  day  by  ravaging  parties.     The  fact  that  their  lives 
were  spared  and  their  persons  not  attacked,  except  in 
a  rare  instance  of  an  individual  piece  of  villainy,  is  proof 
of  the  mild  dispositions  of  the  infidels.     The  Tahitians 
worshiped  their  gods  with  a  superstitious  awe  not  ex- 
ceeded anywhere,  and  the  outlandish  white  men  pro- 
claimed openly  that  these  gods  were  dirty  lumps  of 
wood  and  stone  and  fiber,  and  to  be  despised  in  compari- 
son with  the  Christian  Gods,  Father  and  Son,  which 


488  MYSTIC  ISLES 

they  implored  them  under  pain  of  eternal  punishment 
to  adopt.  Imagine  the  fate  of  strangers  who  settled  in 
j^ew  England  or  Spain  a  hundred  and  twenty  years  ago 
and  who  announced  daily  year  in  and  year  out  that  all 
the  ancestors  of  the  people  there  were  in  hell,  that  their 
God  and  their  angels,  saints,  priests,  and  images  were 
demons,  or  doing  the  work  of  demons,  and  that  only  by 
acknowledging  their  belief  in  a  deity  unheard-of  before, 
•by  having  water  sprinkled  on  their  heads,  and  ceasing 
the  customs  and  thoughts  taught  as  most  moral  and  di- 
vine by  their  own  revered  priests,  could  they  escape 
eternal  misery  as  a  consequence  of  a  mistake  made  by  a 
man  and  a  woman  named  Atamu  and  Ivi  six  thousand 
years  earlier!  In  Spain  at  that  date  the  king  whose 
name  had  been  coupled  with  Christ's  on  the  cross  near 
my  house  at  Tautira  was  expelling  the  Jesuits  from  his 
kingdom,  and  the  Holy  Office  recorded  its  thirtieth 
thousand  human  being  burned  at  the  stake  in  that  coun- 
try in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ. 

The  incredulous  Tahitians  tolerated  the  queer  white 
men  who  wore  long,  black  coats  and  who  had  learned 
their  language,  and  who,  except  as  to  religion,  spoke 
gently  to  them,  healed  their  wounds,  patted  their 
children  on  the  head,  and  taught  them  how  to  use  iron 
and  wood  in  unknown  fashions.  They  saw  that  these 
men  drank  intoxicants  in  great  moderation,  lived  in 
amity,  and  did  not  advantage  themselves  in  trade  or  with 
the  native  women,  as  did  all  the  other  white  men.  And 
they  wondered. 

But  they  were  convinced  of  the  truth  of  their  own  re- 
ligion. Their  chiefs  and  priests  replied : 

"If  your  first  man  and  woman  took  the  lizard's  word 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  489 

and  ate  fruit  from  the  tabu  tree,  they  should  have  been 
punished,  and  if  their  children  killed  the  son  of  your 
God,  they  should  have  been  punished;  but  why  worry 
us  about  it?  We  have  not  killed  you,  and  our  first  man 
and  woman  respected  all  tabu  trees." 

They  disdained  the  cruel  message  that  their  fore- 
fathers were  in  the  perpetually  burning  iimu,  the  oven, 
as  did  that  Frisian  king,  Radbod,  who  with  one  leg  in 
the  baptismal  font,  bethought  him  to  ask  where  were  his 
dead  progenitors,  and  was  answered  by  the  militant 
bishop,  Wolfran,  "In  hell,  with  all  unbelievers." 

"Then  will  I  rather  feast  with  them  in  the  halls  of 
Woden  than  dwell  with  your  little,  starveling  Christians 
in  heaven"  said  the  pagan,  and  withdrew  his  sanctified 
limb  to  walk  to  an  unblessed  grave  in  proud  pantheism. 

Otu,  the  son  of  King  Pomare,  had  a  revelation  that 
the  god  Oro  wished  to  be  removed  to  Tautira  from 
Atehuru.  The  chiefs  of  that  district  protested,  and 
Otu's  followers  seized  the  idol,  and  went  to  sea  with  him. 
They  landed  as  soon  as  it  was  safe,  and  mollified  the  god 
by  a  sacrifice;  and  having  no  victim,  they  killed  one  of 
Pomare's  servants.  The  island  then  divided  into  hate- 
ful camps,  and  Moorea  joined  the  fray.  The  mission 
sided  with  the  king,  and  the  crews  of  two  English  ves- 
sels fortified  the  mission,  and  with  their  modern  weapons 
helped  the  royal  party  to  whip  the  other  faction.  Wars 
followed,  the  mission  was  again  invaded,  the  houses 
burned,  and  the  missionaries,  not  desiring  martyrdom, 
fled  to  Australia,  thousands  of  miles  away.  But  two 
remained,  and  kept  at  their  preaching,  and  finally  the 
genius  of  the  Clapham  clerics  triumphed.  Pomare  ate 
the  tabu  turtle  of  the  temple,  and  a  Christian  nucleus 


490  MYSTIC  ISLES 

was  formed,  headed  by  the  sovereign.  For  years  a 
bloody  warfare  over  Christianity  distracted  the  islands, 
comparable  in  intensity  of  feeling  to  that  between  Catho- 
lics and  Huguenots  in  France.  The  Christian  converts 
were  slaughtered  by  the  hundreds,  and  the  pagans  drove 
all  the  survivors  to  Moorea.  After  a  season  the  con- 
querors grew  lonesome,  and  invited  them  to  return  and 
abjure  their  false  god,  letu  Kirito,  whom  they  had  de- 
feated, and  who  by  the  Christians'  own  statement  had 
been  hanged  on  a  tree  by  the  Ati-Iuda,  the  tribe  of  Jews. 
Pomare  and  eight  hundred  men  landed  from  Moorea, 
and  with  the  missionaries  began  a  song  service  on  the 
beach,  and  "Come,  let  us  join  our  friends  above,"  and 
"Blow  ye  the  trumpets,  blow!"  echoed  from  the  hills. 

Couriers  carried  all  over  Tahiti  word  of  the  outrage 
to  the  gods,  and  the  incensed  heathens  rose  in  immense 
numbers  and  attacked  the  hymners.  Fortunately,  says 
the  missionary  chronicle,  the  Christians  had  their  arms 
with  them,  and  after  prayers  and  exhortations  by  the 
clergy,  Pomare  led  his  cohorts,  men  and  women ;  and  by 
the  grace  of  God  and  the  whites,  with  a  few  muskets, 
they  smote  the  devil-worshipers  hip  and  thigh,  and 
chased  them  to  the  distant  valleys. 

Pomare,  directed  by  the  now  militant  missionaries, 
sent  a  body  of  gunmen  to  Tautira  to  capture  the  god 
Oro,  whose  principal  temple  was  very  near  where  stood 
my  kitchen.  The  iconoclasts,  with  the  zeal  of  neo- 
phytes, destroyed  every  vestige  of  the  magnificent 
marae,  and,  unwinding  the  many  coverings  of  Oro,  car- 
ried to  the  king  the  huge  log  which  had  been  the  national 
god  for  ages.  The  king  first  used  it  in  his  cook-house 
as  a  shelf,  and  finally  for  firewood. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  491 

From  then  on  the  cross  became  the  symbol  of  the  new 
religion,  and  those  who  had  been  most  faithful  to  the 
old  were  the  strongest  disciples.  Until  the  French  ex- 
pelled the  missionary-consul  of  England,  Pritchard,  the 
missionaries  virtually  governed  Tahiti ;  but  with  the  con- 
flict of  sects  and  the  growing  claims  of  trade,  piety  lan- 
guished, until  now  church-going  was  become  a  social 
pastime,  and  of  small  influence  upon  the  conduct  of  the 
Tahitians.  The  pastors  were  no  longer  of  the  type  of 
the  pioneers,  and  with  the  fast  decrease  of  the  race,  the 
Tahitians  were  left  largely  to  their  own  devices.  Half 
a  dozen  religions  supported  ministers  from  America  and 
Europe  in  Papeete;  but  there  was  no  longer  a  fire  of 
proselytizing,  as  all  were  nominally  Christians.  In 
Tautira  everybody  went  to  the  Protestant  or  the  Catho- 
lic church,  the  latter  having  a  fifth  as  many  attendants 
as  the  former.  A  reason  for  this  may  have  been  that 
there  was  no  French  priest  resident  at  Tautira,  and  no 
Tahitian  priests,  whereas  Tahitian  preachers  abound. 
Also  the  chiefs  were  Protestants,  and  their  influence 
notable. 

Ori-a-Ori,  though  busied  in  his  official  duties,  and  by 
nature  a  silent  man,  assumed  of  me  a  care,  and  in  time 
gave  me  a  friendship  beyond  my  possible  return  to  him. 
I  sent  to  Papeete  for  a  variety  of  edibles  from  the  stores 
of  the  Xew-Zealand  and  German  merchants,  and  spread 
a  gay  table,  to  which  I  often  invited  Choti  and  T'yonni, 
who  were  my  hosts  as  frequently.  Ori-a-Ori  every 
evening  sat  with  me,  and  numbers  of  times  we  read  the 
Bible,  I,  first,  reciting  the  verse  in  French,  and  he  fol- 
lowing in  Tahitian.  His  greatest  liking  was  for  the 
chapters  in  which  the  Saviour's  life  on  the  seaside  with 


492  MYSTIC  ISLES 

the  fishermen  was  described,  but  the  beatitudes  brought 
out  to  the  fullest  his  deep,  melancholy  voice,  as  by  the 
light  of  the  lamp  upon  the  low  table  the  chief  intoned  the 
thrilling  gospel  of  humility  and  unselfishness. 

Never  before  had  I  appreciated  so  well  the  divine 
character  of  Jesus  or  conjectured  so  clearly  the  scenes 
of  his  teaching  upon  the  shores  of  the  Lake  of  Galilee. 
Excepting  the  tropical  plants  and  the  eternal  accent  of 
the  reef,  the  old  Tahitian  and  I  might  have  been  in  Pal- 
estine with  Peter  and  the  sons  of  Zebedee  and  the  dis- 
ciples. They  were  people  of  slender  worldly  knowl- 
edge, the  carpenter's  son  knew  nothing  of  history,  and 
ate  with  his  fingers,  as  did  Ori-a-Ori;  but  their  open 
eyes,  unclouded  by  sophistication  and  complex  interests, 
looked  at  the  universe  and  saw  God.  They  lived  mostly 
under  the  open  sky  in  touch  with  nature,  dependent  on 
its  manifestations  immediately  about  them  for  their  sus- 
tenance, and  with  its  gifts  and  curses  for  their  concerns 
and  symbols. 

Occidentals,  who  seldom  muse,  to  whom  contempla- 
tion is  waste  of  time,  do  not  enjoy  the  oneness  with  na- 
ture shared  by  these  Polynesians  with  the  sacred  Com- 
moner whose  beatitudes  were  to  bring  anarchy  upon  the 
Roman  world,  and  destroy  the  effects  of  the  philoso- 
phies of  the  ablest  minds  of  Greece.  The  fishermen  of 
Samaria  were  gay  and  somber  by  turn,  as  were  the  Ta- 
hitians,  doing  little  work,  but  much  thinking,  and  inno- 
cent and  ignorant  of  the  perplexing  problems  and  offen- 
sive indecencies  of  striving  and  luxury.  The  air  and 
light  nurtured  them,  and  they  confidently  leaned  upon 
the  hand  of  God  to  guide  and  preserve. 

Thoreau's  "Cry  of  the  Human"  echoed  in  the  dark 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  493 

as  the  chief  and  I  chanted  the  idealistic  desires  of  the 
friend  of  man: 

We  talk  of  civilizing  the  Indian,  but  that  is  not  the  name  for 
his  improvement.  By  the  wary  independence  and  aloofness 
of  his  dim  forest  life  he  preserves  his  intercourse  with  his 
native  gods  and  is  admitted  from  time  to  time  to  a  rare  and 
peculiar  society  with  nature.  He  has  glances  of  starry  recog- 
nition to  which  our  salons  are  strangers.  The  steady  illum- 
ination of  his  genius,  dim  only  because  distant,  is  like  the  faint 
but  satisfying  light  of  the  stars  ccfmpared  with  the  dazzling 
and  shortlived  blaze  of  candles. 

One  evening  when  we  had  walked  down  to  the  beach 
to  gaze  at  the  heavens  and  to  speculate  on  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  planets,  we  sat  on  our  haunches,  our  feet 
lapped  by  the  warm  tide,  and  for  the  first  time  I  drew 
our  conversation  to  a  man  who  in  a  brief  friendship  had 
won  the  deep  affection  of  this  noble  islander. 

"Ori-a-Ori,"  I  began,  "in  America,  in  the  city  where 
I  lived,  my  house  was  near  a  small  aua,  a  park  in  which 
was  a  tti,  a  monument,  to  a  great  writer,  a  teller  of  tales 
on  paper.  On  a  tall  block  of  stone  is  a  ship  of  gold, 
with  the  sails  spread;  so  she  seems  to  be  sailing  over  the 
ocean.  The  friends  of  the  teller  of  tales  built  this  tii 
in  his  honor  after  he  died.  Now  that  writer  was  once 
here  in  Tautira — " 

Ori-a-Ori  leaned  toward  me,  and  in  a  voice  laden  with 
memories,  a  voice  that  harked  back  over  a  quarter  of  a 
century,  said  slowly  and  meditatively,  but  with  surety: 

"Rui?     Is  the  ship  the  Tatto?" 

I  had  awakened  in  his  mind  recollections,  doubtless 
often  stirred,  but  very  vague,  perhaps,  almost  mythical 
to  him,  after  so  long  a  time  in  which  nothing  like  the 


494  MYSTIC  ISLES 

same  experience  had  come  to  him.  Yet  that  they  were 
dear  to  him  was  evident.  They  were  concerned  with 
his  vigorous  manhood,  though  he  was  a  youthful  grand- 
father when  the  Casco  brought  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 
to  Tahiti  to  live  in  the  house  of  Ori.  I  reminded  him  of 
their  exchanging  names  in  blood  brothership,  so  that 
Stevenson  was  Teriitera,  and  Ori  was  Rui.  Rui  was  his 
pronunciation  of  Louis,  as  all  his  family  in  Tautira 
called  the  Scotch  author.  Ori-a-Ori  had  known  them 
all,  his  mother,  his  wife,  and  his  loved  stepson,  Lloyd 
Osborne.  Xine  weeks  they  had  stayed  in  his  house, 
which  the  Princess  Moe,  Pomare's  sister-in-law,  had 
asked  Ori  to  vacate  for  the  visitors  before  he  knew  them, 
but  which  he  was  glad  he  had  done  when  they  became 
friends.  Ori  and  his  family  had  retained  only  one  room 
for  their  intimate  effects,  and  had  slept  in  a  native  house 
on  the  site  of  my  own.  On  the  wild  lawn  across  the 
road,  before  his  home,  Rui  had  given  his  generous  feast, 
costing  him  eighty  dollars  at  a  time  when  he  was  most 
uncertain  of  funds,  and  gaining  him  the  reputation  of 
the  richest  man  known  to  the  Tautirans,  the  owner  of 
the  Silver  Ship,  as  the  Casco  was  called  by  the  Paumo- 
tuans,  and  by  Stevenson  afterward.  There  were  four 
or  five  Tahitians  I  knew  here  who  remembered  the 
amuraa  maa  of  the  sick  man,  who  had  his  own  schooner, 
his  pahi  lira  piti;  but  only  Ori  retained  the  deep,  though 
misty,  impression  made  by  a  meeting  of  hearts  in  warm- 
est kinship. 

"Rui  gave  me  knives  and  forks  and  dishes  from  the 
schooner  to  remember  him  by,"  said  the  chief,  abstract- 
edly. "Tati,  my  relation,  has  them.  I  have  not  those 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  495 

presents  Rui  handed  me.  Tati  said  that  I  ate  with  my 
fingers,  and  that  he  was  the  head  of  the  Teva  clan;  so 
I  gave  them  to  him.  Many  papaa  visit  Tati  at  Papara. 
He  is  rich.  Aue!  I  have  not  the  presents  Rui  put 
down  on  my  table." 

I  said  over  for  him  what  Rui  had  written: 

I  love  the  Potynesian ;  this  civilization  of  ours  is  a  dingy, 
ungentlemanly  business ;  it  drops  out  too  much  of  man,  and  too 
much  of  that  the  very  beauty  of  the  poor  beast  ...  if  you 
could  live,  the  only  white  folk,  in  a  Polynesian  village,  and 
drink  that  warm,  light  vin  du  pays  of  human  affection,  and 
enjoy  that  simple  dignity  of  all  about  you  .  .  . 

Paiere,  the  adopted  son  of  Ori,  who  was  a  boy  when 
the  Casco  was  at  Tautira,  claimed  a  vivid  remembrance 
of  many  incidents.  He  especially  had  been  impressed 
by  the  numbers  of  corks  that  flew  in  the  house  and  on  the 
green ;  and  when  I  invited  him  to  a  bottle  of  champagne, 
he  made  hissing  sounds  and  a  plop  to  indicate  that  Rui 
had  a  penchant  for  that  kind  of  wine. 

"I  used  to  fetch  him  oranges  and  mangoes,  and  climb 
for  drinking  nuts,  of  which  Rui  was  fond,"  said  Paiere. 

Paiere  was  a  deacon  or  functionary  of  the  Protestant 
shurch,  as  was  Ori-a-Ori,  and  I  went  with  the  entire 
family  to  the  Sunday  evening  service.  For  weeks  pre- 
parations and  rehearsals  for  a  himene  nui,  a  mammoth 
song  service,  had  been  agitating  the  village.  Under  my 
trees  the  children  gathered  of  late  afternoons  and  imi- 
tated the  grown-up  folk  in  their  melodies.  From  the 
verandas  and  from  the  church  at  night  issued  the  pe- 
culiar strain  of  the  himene,  somehow  bringing  to  me, 


496  MYSTIC  ISLES 

lying  on  my  mat  under  the  stars,  a  sense  of  fitness  to  the 
prospect — the  clear  heavens,  the  purple  lagoon,  the  wind 
in  the  groves,  and  the  low  rumble  of  the  surf. 

On  the  Sunday  of  the  himene  nui,  I  met  the  French 
priest  as  he  tied  his  horse  by  the  door  of  the  Catholic 
church.  He  was  in  a  dark  cassock  or  gown,  his  long, 
black  beard  and  a  flat,  half -melon  shaped  hat  giving  him 
a  distinctive  appearance  in  the  simple  settlement.  He 
was  old,  and  weary  from  his  hot  ride,  but  courteous  as 
world-wide  travelers  are,  and  at  his  request  I  dropped 
in  on  his  service  before  the  other.  He  sat  by  the  middle 
door,  and  the  twenty  or  thirty  of  the  congregation  on  the 
floor  at  one  end.  They  sang  a  himene,  and  he  followed 
and  corrected  them  from  a  book,  so  that  their  method 
was  formal.  Congregational  singing  not  being  custo- 
mary in  Catholic  churches,  it  was  probable  that  in  Ta- 
hiti they  had  had  to  meet  the  competition  of  the  Protest- 
ants, who  from  their  beginnings  in  Polynesia  had  made  a 
master  stroke  by  developing  this  form  of  worship  in  ex- 
traordinary consonance  with  the  native  mind. 

The  Protestant  temple  held  a  hundred  and  fifty 
people.  It  was  a  plain  hall,  with  doors  opposite  each 
other  in  the  middle,  and  at  one  end  a  slightly  raised 
platform  on  which  sat  the  pastor  and  half  a  dozen  dea- 
cons. The  pastor  was  delivering  his  sermon  as  I  en- 
tered, he  and  all  his  entourage  in  black  Prince- Albert 
coats.  He  had  a  white  shirt  and  collar  and  tie,  but 
others  masked  a  pareu  under  the  wool,  and  were  bare- 
legged. All  wore  solemn  faces  of  a  jury  bringing  in  a 
death-verdict.  Paiere  nodded  to  a  volunteer  janitor, 
who  insisted  upon  my  occupying  a  chair  he  brought. 

Every  one  else  was  on  the  floor  on  mats,  in  two 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  497 

squares  or  separate  divisions.  Babies  lay  at  their 
mothers'  extended  feet,  and  others  ran  about  the  room 
in  silence.  The  pastor's  sermon  was  about  loba  and 
his  tefa  pua,  which  he  scraped  with  poa,  the  shells  of  the 
beach.  He  pictured  the  man  of  patience  as  if  in  Tau- 
tira,  with  his  three  faithless  friends,  Elifazi,  Bilidadi, 
and  Tof  ari,  urging  him  to  deny  God  and  to  sin ;  and  the 
speaker  struck  the  railing  with  his  fist  when  he  enumer- 
ated the  possessions  taken  from  loba  by  God,  but  re- 
turned a  hundredfold.  After  he  had  finished,  wiping 
the  sweat  from  his  brow  with  a  colored  kerchief,  the 
himene  began. 

The  only  advance  we  have  made  since  the  Greeks  is 
in  music.  Possibly  in  painting  we  have  better  mediums ; 
but  in  philosophy,  poetry,  sculpture,  decency,  beauty, 
we  have  not  risen.  We  cure  diseases  more  skilfully,  but 
we  have  more;  in  health  we  are  crippled  by  our  cities  and 
our  customs.  Our  violins  and  pianos,  our  orchestras 
and  symphonies,  are  our  great  achievements ;  but  in  these 
South  Seas,  where  they  do  not  count,  the  people  had 
evolved  a  mass  utterance  of  canticles  more  thrilling  and 
more  enjoyable  than  the  oratorios  of  Europe.  In  these 
himenes  one  may  see  transfigured  for  moments  the  soul 
of  the  Polynesian  ascending  above  the  dust  of  the  west, 
which  smothers  his  articulation. 

A  woman  in  the  center  of  a  row  suddenly  struck  a 
high  note,  beginning  a  few  words  from  a  hymn,  or  an 
improvisation.  She  sang  through  a  phrase,  and  then 
others  joined  in,  singly  or  in  pairs  or  in  tens,  without 
any  apparent  rule  except  close  harmony.  These  voices 
burst  in  from  any  point,  a  perfect  glee  chorus,  some 
high,  some  low,  some  singing  words,  and  others  merely 


498  MYSTIC  ISLES 

humming  resonantly,  a  deep,  booming  bass.  The  surf 
beating  on  the  reef,  the  wind  in  the  cocoanut-trees,  en- 
tered into  the  volume  of  sound,  and  were  mingled  in  the 
emmeleia,  a  resulting  magnificence  of  accord  that  re- 
minded me  curiously  of  a  great  pipe-organ. 

The  Jiimene  was  the  offspring  of  the  original  efforts 
of  the  Polynesians  to  adapt  the  songs  of  the  sailormen, 
the  national  airs  of  the  adventurers  of  many  countries, 
the  rollicking  obscenities  and  drinking  doggerel  of  the 
navies,  and  the  religious  hymns  drilled  into  their  ears  by 
the  missionaries,  English  and  French.  Xow  the  words 
and  the  meanings  were  inextricably  confused.  A  leader 
might  begin  with,  "I  am  washed  in  the  blood  of  the 
Lamb,"  or,  "The  Son  of  Man  goes  forth  to  war,  a  golden 
crown  to  gain;  His  blood-red  banner  streams  afar — 
who  follows  in  his  train?"  But  those  striking  in  might 
prefer  such  a  phrase  as,  "The  old  white  pig  ran  into  the 
sea,"  or,  "Johnny  Brown,  I  love  your  daughter,"  or 
something  not  possible  to  write  down.  It  was  mostly 
in  the  old  Tahitian  language,  almost  forgotten,  and  thus 
unknown  to  the  foreign  preachers.  Sex  and  religion 
were  as  mingled  here  as  in  America. 

The  airs  were  as  wild  as  they  were  melodious;  here  a 
rippling  torrent  of  ra>  ra,  ra-ra-ra,  and  la,  la,  la-la-la 
breaking  in  on  the  sustained  verses  of  the  leaders;  fal- 
setto notes,  high  and  strident,  savage  and  shrilling, 
piercing  the  thrumming  diapason  of  the  men;  long, 
droning  tones  like  bagpipes,  bubbling  sounds  like  water 
flowing;  and  all  in  perfect  time.  The  clear,  fascinating 
false  soprano  of  the  woman  leader  had  a  cadence  of 
ecstasy,  and  I  marked  her  under  a  lamp.  Her  head 
was  thrown  back,  her  eyes  were  closed,  and  her  features 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  499 

set  as  in  a  trance.  Her  throat  and  mouth  moved,  and 
her  nostrils  quivered,  her  countenance  glorified  by  her 
visions  which  had  transported  her  to  the  bosom  of  Abra- 
ham. 

The  atmosphere  rang  as  with  the  chimes  of  a  cathe- 
dral, the  echoes — there  were  none  in  reality — returning 
from  roof  and  tree,  and  I  had  the  feeling  of  the  air  being 
made  up  of  voices,  and  of  whirling  in  this  magic  ether. 
The  woman  I  observed  would  seem  about  to  stop,  her 
voice  falling  away  almost  to  no  sound,  and  the  pro- 
longed drone  of  the  chorus  dying  out,  when,  as  if  she  had 
come  to  life  again,  she  sang  out  at  the  top  of  her  lungs, 
and  the  ranks  again  took  up  their  tones.  I  could  al- 
most trace  the  imposition  of  the  religious  strain  upon  the 
savage,  the  Christian  upon  the  heathen,  like  the  negro 
spirituals  of  Georgia,  and  I  sat  back  in  my  chair,  and 
forgot  the  scene  in  the  thoughts  induced  by  the  liimene. 

The  souls  of  the  Tahitians  were  not  much  changed  by 
all  their  outward  transformation.  Superficial,  indeed, 
are  the  accomplishments  of  missionaries,  merchants,  and 
masters  among  these  Maoris.  The  old  guard  dies,  but 
never  surrenders ;  the  boast  of  Xapoleon's  soldiers  might 
be  paraphrased  by  the  voice  of  the  Maori  spirit.  Our 
philosophy,  our  catechisms,  and  our  rules  have  not  up- 
rooted the  convictions  and  thought  methods  of  centu- 
ries. Bewildered  by  our  ambitions,  fashions,  and  inven- 
tions, they  emulate  us  feebly,  but  in  their  heart  of  hearts 
think  us  mad.  Old  chiefs  and  chief  esses  I  have  had  con- 
fess to  me  that  they  were  stunned  by  the  novelties,  com- 
mands, and  demands  of  the  papaa  (foreigner),  but  that 
their  confusion  was  not  liking  or  belief.  In  his  vouth, 
in  the  midst  of  these  bustling  whites,  the  Tahitian  imi- 


500  MYSTIC  ISLES 

tates  them  and  feels  sometimes  humiliated  that  he  is  not 
one  of  them.  But  in  sober  middle  age  all  these  new  de- 
sires begin  to  leave  him,  and  he  becomes  a  Maori  again. 
The  older  he  grows,  the  less  attractive  seem  the  white 
man's  ways  and  ambitions,  though  pride,  habit,  and  per- 
haps an  acquired  fear  of  the  hell  painted  by  priests  and 
preachers  from  the  distant  lands  keep  him  church-go- 
ing. Gods  may  differ,  but  devils  never. 

Choti  and  T'yonni  and  I  spent  an  hour  at  my  house 
before  they  walked  home  to  bed,  and  Choti  read  as  a 
soporific,  with  a  few  bottles  of  Munich  beer,  the  "Ser- 
mon to  the  Fishes"  of  St.  Antonius.  As  he  read,  we 
heard  the  joyous  stridence  of  an  accordion  in  a  hula 
harmony.  The  upaupahura  was  beginning  in  the  grove 
where  Uritaata  lived.  The  austere  St.  Antonius  had 
lectured  long  to  the  eels  on  the  folly  of  wiggling,  to  the 
pikes  on  the  immorality  of  stealing,  and  to  the  crabs 
and  turtles  on  the  danger  of  sloth.  But : 

"The  sermon  now  ended, 

Each  turned  and  descended; 

The  pikes  went  on  stealing, 

The  eels  went  on  eeling; 

Much  edified  were  they, 
But  preferred   the  old  way. 

"The  crabs  are  back-sliders, 

The  stock-fish  thick-siders, 

The  carps  are  sharp-set, 

All  the  sermon  forget ; 

Much  delighted  were  they, 
But  preferred  the  old  way." 


CHAPTER  XXV 

I  meet  a  sorcerer — 'Power  over  fire — The  mystery  of  the  fiery  furnace — 
The  scene  in  the  forest — Walking  over  the  white  hot  stones — Origin 
of  the  rite. 

WALKING  to  the  neighboring  district  of 
Pueu  with  Raiere  to  see  the  beauties  of  the 
shore,  we  met  a  cart  coming  toward  Tau- 
tira,  and  one  of  the  two  natives  in  it  attracted  my  in- 
terest. He  was  very  tall  and  broad  and  proud  of  car- 
riage, old,  but  still  unbroken  in  form  or  feature,  and  with 
a  look  of  unconformity  that  marked  him  for  a  rebel. 
Against  what?  I  wondered.  Walt  Whitman  had  that 
look,  and  so  had  Lincoln ;  and  Thomas  Paine,  who  more 
than  any  Englishman  aided  the  American  Revolution. 
Mysticism  was  in  this  man's  eyes,  which  did  not  gaze  at 
the  things  about  him,  but  were  blinds  to  a  secret  soul. 

Raiere  exchanged  a  few  words  with  the  driver  of  the 
cart,  and  as  they  continued  on  toward  Tautira,  he  said  to 
me  in  a  very  serious  voice: 

"He  is  a  tahua,  a  sorcerer,  who  will  enact  the  Umuti, 
the  walking  over  the  fiery  oven.  He  is  from  Raiatea 
and  very  noted.  Ten  years  ago,  Papa  Ita  of  Raiatea 
was  here,  but  there  has  been  no  Umuti  since." 

"What  brings  him  here  now?"  I  asked.  "Who  pays 
him?" 

Raiere  answered  quickly: 

" Auel  he  does  not  ask  for  money,  but  he  must  live, 
and  we  all  will  give  a  little.  It  is  good  to  see  the  Umuti 


again. 


501 


502  MYSTIC  ISLES 

"But,  Raiere,  my  friend,"  I  protested,  "you  are  a 
Christian,  and  only  a  day  ago  ate  the  breadfruit  at  the 
communion  service.  Fire-walking  is  etene;  it  is  a 
heathen  rite." 

"Atia!"  replied  the  youth.  "No,  it  is  in  the  Bible,  and 
was  taught  by  Te  Atua,  the  great  God.  The  three  boys 
in  Babulonia  were  saved  from  death  by  Atua  teaching 
them  the  way  of  the  Umuti." 

"Where  will  the  Umuti  be?"  I  inquired.  "I  must 
see  it." 

"By  the  old  tii  up  the  Aataroa  valley,  on  Saturday 
night." 

That  was  five  days  off,  and  it  could  not  come  soon 
enough  for  me.  I  was  eager  for  this  strangest,  most 
inexplicable  survival  of  ancient  magic,  the  apparent  only 
failure  of  the  natural  law  that  fire  will  burn  human 
flesh.  I  had  seen  it  in  Hawaii  and  in  other  countries, 
and  had  not  reached  any  satisfying  explanation  of  its 
seeming  reversal  of  all  other  experience.  I  knew  that 
fire-walking  as  a  part  of  the  racial  or  national  worship 
of  a  god  of  fire,  had  existed  and  persisted  in  many  far 
separated  parts  of  the  world. 

Babylon,  Egypt,  India,  Malaysia,  North  America, 
Japan,  and  scattered  Maoris  from  Hawaii  to  New  Zea- 
land all  had  religious  ceremonies  in  which  the  gaining 
and  showing  of  power  over  fire  was  a  miracle  seen  and 
believed  in  by  priests  and  laity.  Modern  saints  and 
quasi-scientists  had  claims  to  similar  achievements.  Dr. 
Dozous  said  he  saw  Bernadette,  the  seeress  of  Lourdes, 
hold  her  hands  in  a  flame  for  fifteen  minutes  without 
pain  or  mark,  he  timing  the  incident  exactly  by  his 
watch.  Daniel  Dunglas  Home,  the  famous  Scottish 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  503 

spiritist,  was  certified  by  Sir  William  Crookes  and  An- 
drew Lang  to  handle  red-hot  coals  in  his  hands,  and 
could  convey  to  others  the  same  immunity.  Lang  tells 
of  a  friend  of  his,  a  clergyman,  whose  hand  was  badly 
blistered  by  a  coal  Home  put  in  his  palm,  Home  at- 
tributing the  accident  to  the  churchman's  unbelieving 
state  of  mind.  Crookes,  the  distinguished  physicist, 
took  into  his  laboratory  handkerchiefs  in  which  Home 
had  wrapped  live  coals,  and  found  them  "unburned,  un- 
scorched,  and  not  prepared  to  resist  fire." 

The  scene  of  the  Umuti  was  an  hour's  walk  up  the 
glen  of  Aataroa,  which  began  at  our  swimming-place. 
On  Thursday  Choti,  T'yonni,  and  I  accompanied 
Raiere  to  the  place  of  the  tii,  where  the  preparations  for 
the  sorcery  were  beginning.  We  went  through  a  con- 
tinuous forest  of  many  kinds  of  trees,  a  vast,  climbing 
coppice,  in  which  all  the  riches  of  the  Tahitian  earth 
were  mingled  with  growths  from  abroad.  Oranges  and 
lemons,  which  had  sprung  decades  before  from  seeds 
strewn  carelessly,  had  become  giant  trees  of  their  kinds ; 
and  the  lianas  and  parasites,  guava,  lantana,  and  a  hun- 
dred species  of  ferns  and  orchids,  with  myriad  mosses, 
covered  every  foot  of  soil,  or  stretched  upon  the  trunks 
and  limbs,  so  that  exquisite  tapestries  garlanded  the 
trees  and  hung  like  green  and  gold  draperies  between 
them.  Mape-trees  prevailed,  immense,  weirdly  shaped, 
often  appalling  in  their  curious  buttresses,  their  limbs 
writhing  as  if  in  torture,  suggestive  of  the  old  fetishism 
that  had  endowed  them  with  spirits  which  suffered  and 
spoke.  LTtterly  uninhabited  or  forsaken,  there  was  a 
bare  trail  through  this  wood,  which,  led  by  Raiere,  we 
followed,  wading  the  Aataroa  River  twice,  and  I  arriv- 


504  MYSTIC  ISLES 

ing  with  my  mind  deeply  impressed  by  the  esoteric  sug- 
gestiveness  of  the  scene. 

On  a  level  spot,  under  five  ponderous  mape-trees, 
eight  or  ten  men  of  Tautira  and  of  Pueu  and  Afaahiti 
were  completing  the  oven.  They  had  dug  a  pit  twenty- 
five  feet  long,  eighteen  wide,  and  five  deep,  with  straight 
sides.  It  had  been  done  with  exactitude  at  the  direc- 
tion of  the  tahua,  who  was  staying  alone  in  a  hut  near  by. 
The  earth  from  the  pit  formed  a  rampart  about  it,  but 
was  leveled  to  not  more  than  a  foot's  height.  At  the 
bottom  of  the  umu  had  been  laid  fagots  of  purau-  and 
guava-wood,  and  on  them  huge  trunks  of  the  tropical 
chestnut,  the  mape.  On  the  trunks  were  laid  basaltic 
rocks,  or  lumps  of  lava,  boulders,  and  the  stones  about, 
as  big  as  a  man's  head.  The  oven  was  completed  for 
the  lighting. 

To  the  north  stood  a  giant  phallus  of  stone,  buried 
in  the  earth,  but  protruding  six  feet,  and  inclined  toward 
the  north.  It  was  a  foot  in  diameter,  and  was  carved 
au  naturel  as  the  Maori  lingam  and  yoni  throughout 
Polynesia,  and  in  India,  where  doubtless  the  cult  origin- 
ated. Before  the  break-down  of  their  culture,  this  stone 
had  been  sprinkled  with  water,  or  anointed  with  co- 
coanut-oil,  and  covered  with  a  black  cloth,  as  in  Hawaii. 
The  Greeks  called  their  similar  god,  Priapus,  the  Black- 
Cloaked. 

A  trench  had  been  made  on  the  west  side  of  the  pit 
from  which  to  ignite  the  fuel,  a  torch  lit  by  fire  struck 
from  wood  by  friction.  I  did  not  see  the  lighting, 
which  occurred  Friday  morning,  thirty-six  hours  before 
the  ceremony.  The  ordinance  was  set  for  eight  o'clock. 
I  swam  in  the  river  at  five  on  Saturday,  and  lay  down 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  505 

in  my  bird  cage  to  be  thoroughly  rested  for  the  night. 
It  was  not  easy  to  fall  asleep.  There  was  a  thicket  of 
pandanus  near  my  house,  the  many  legs  of  the  curious 
trees  set  in  the  sand  of  the  upper  beach,  and  these  trees 
were  favorite  resort  of  the  mina  birds,  which  were  as 
familiar  with  me  as  children  of  a  family,  and  in  many 
cases  impudent  beyond  belief.  They  were  the  size  of 
crows,  and  had  bronzed  wings,  lined  with  white;  but 
their  most  conspicuous  color  was  a  flaring  yellow,  which 
dyed  their  feet  and  their  beaks  and  encircled  their  bold 
eyes  like  canary-colored  rims  of  spectacles.  Their  usual 
voice  was  a  hoarse  croak  that  a  raven  might  disavow, 
but  they  also  emitted  a  disturbing  rattle  and  a  whistle, 
according  to  their  moods.  They  were  thieves,  as  I  have 
said,  but  one  was  more  audacious  than  the  others.  He 
would  come  into  my  open  house  at  da)rbreak,  and  perch 
on  my  body,  and  awaken  me  pecking  at  imaginary  ticks. 
He  picked  up  a  small  compass  by  its  chain  and  flew  away 
with  it. 

This  particular  wretch  had  learned  to  speak  a  little, 
and  would  say,  "la  ora  na  oe!"  sharply,  but  with  a  de- 
cided grackle  accent.  Despite  the  irritating  cacophony 
of  the  mina,  I  must  have  slept  more  than  an  hour;  for 
when  I  was  suddenly  awakened,  the  sun  was  almost  lost 
behind  the  hills.  The  talking  mina  was  dancing  on  my 
bare  stomach  and  calling  out  his  human  vocabulary. 

I  sprang  up,  my  tormentor  uttering  a  raucous  screech 
as  I  tossed  him  away.  While  I  hastily  cooked  my  sup- 
per, the  colors  of  the  hiding  sun  spread  over  the  sky  in 
entrancing  variety.  I  could  not  see  the  west,  but  to  the 
northeast  were  rifts  of  blood-red  clouds  edged  with  gold 
over  a  lake  of  pearly  hue,  and  to  the  right  of  it  a  bank 


506  MYSTIC  ISLES 

of  smoke.  Against  this  was  a  single  cocoa  on  the  edge 
of  the  promontory,  a  banner  my  eye  always  sought  as 
the  day  ended.  Rising  a  hundred  feet  or  more,  the 
curving  staff  upheld  a  dozen  dark  fronds,  which  nodded 
in  the  evening  breeze. 

There  was  the  slightest  chill  in  the  air,  unusual  there, 
so  that  I  put  on  shirt  and  trousers  of  thin  silk  and  tennis 
shoes  for  my  walk,  and  with  a  lantern  set  out  for  the  tii. 
Along  the  road  were  my  neighbors,  the  whole  village 
streaming  toward  the  goblin  wood.     Mahine  and  Maraa, 
two  girls  of  my  acquaintance,  unmarried  and  the  merriest 
in  Tautira,  joined  me.     They  adorned  me  with  a  wreath 
of  ferns  and  luminous,  flower-shaped  fungus  from  the 
trees,  living  plants,  the  taria  lore,  or  rat's-ear,  which 
shone   like   haloes   above   our   faces.     The  girls   wore 
pink  gowns,  which  they  pulled  to  their  waists  as  we 
forded  the  streams.     Mahine  had  a  mouth-organ  on 
which  she  played.     We  sang  and  danced,  and  the  tossing 
torches   stirred  the  shadows  of  the  black  wold,   and 
brought  out  in  shifting  glimpses  the  ominous  shapes  of 
the  monstrous  trees.     With  all  our  gaiety,  I  had  only 
to  utter  a  loud  "Awl"  and  the  natives  rushed  together 
for  protection  against  the  unseen;  not  of  the  physical, 
but  of  the  dark  abode  of  Po.     In  this  lonely  wilderness 
they  thought  that  tupapaus,  the  ghosts  of  the  departed, 
must  have  their  assembly,  and  deep  in  their  hearts  was  a 
deadly  fear  of  these  revenants. 

When  we  approached  the  umu,  I  felt  the  heat  fifty 
feet  away.  The  pit  was  a  mass  of  glowing  stones,  and 
half  a  dozen  men  whom  I  knew  were  spreading  them 
as  evenly  as  possible,  turning  them  with  long  poles. 
Each,  as  it  was  moved,  disclosed  its  lower  surface  crim- 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  507 

son  red  and  turning  white.  The  flames  leaped  up  from 
the  wood  between  the  stones. 

About  the  oven,  forty  feet  away,  the  people  of  the 
villages  who  had  gathered,  stood  or  squatted,  and 
solemnly  awaited  the  ritual.  The  talma,  Tufetufetu, 
was  still  in  a  tiny  hut  that  had  been  erected  for  him,  and 
at  prayer.  A  deacon  of  the  church  went  to  him,  and 
informed  him  that  the  umu  was  ready,  and  he  came 
slowly  toward  us.  He  wore  a  white  pareu  of  the  an- 
cient tapa,  and  a  white  tiputa,  a  poncho  of  the  same 
beaten-bark  fabrics.  His  head  was  crowned  with  ti- 
leaves,  and  in  his  hand  he  had  a  wand  of  the  same.  He 
was  in  the  dim  light  a  vision  of  the  necromancer  of 
medieval  books. 

He  halted  three  steps  from  the  fiery  furnace,  and 
chanted  in  Tahitian: 

O  spirits  who  put  fire  in  the  oven,  slack  the  fire! 

O  worm  of  black  earth, 

O  worm  of  bright  earth,  fresh  water,  sea  water,  heat  of  the  oven, 

red  of  the  oven,  support  the  feet  of  the  walkers,  and  fan 

away  the  fire! 

O  Cold  Beings,  let  us  pass  over  the  middle  of  the  oven ! 
O  Great  Woman,  who  puts  the  fire  in  the  heavens,  hold  still 

the  leaf  that  fans  the  fire! 

Let  thy  children  go  on  the  oven  for  a  little  while ! 
Mother  of  the  first  footstep! 
Mother  of  the  second  footstep! 
Mother  of  the  third  footstep ! 
Mother  of  the  fourth  footstep! 
Mother  of  the  fifth  footstep ! 
Mother  of  the  sixth  footstep ! 
Mother  of  the  seventh  footstep! 
Mother  of  the  eighth  footstep ! 


508  MYSTIC  ISLES 

Mother  of  the  ninth  footstep ! 
Mother  of  the  tenth  footstep! 

O  Great  Woman,  who  puts  the  fire  in  the  heavens,  all 
is  hidden! 

Then,  his  body  erect,  his  eyes  toward  the  stars, 
augustly,  and  without  hesitation  or  choice  of  footprints, 
the  taliu  walked  upon  the  umu.  His  body  was  naked 
except  for  the  tapa,  which  extended  from  his  shoulders 
to  his  knees.  The  heat  radiated  from  the  stones,  and 
sitting  on  the  ground  I  saw  the  quivering  of  the  beams 
just  above  the  oven. 

Tufetufetu  traversed  the  entire  length  of  the  umu 
with  no  single  flinching  of  his  muscles  or  flutter  of  his 
eyelids  to  betray  pain  or  fear.  He  raised  his  wand  when 
he  reached  the  end,  and,  turning  slowly,  retraced  his 
steps. 

The  spectators,  who  had  held  their  breaths,  heaved 
deep  sighs,  but  no  word  was  spoken  as  the  talma  signed 
all  to  follow  him  in  another  journey  over  the  white-hot 
rocks.  All  but  a  few,  their  number  obscured  in  the 
darkness,  ranged  themselves  in  a  line  behind  him,  and 
with  masses  of  ^'-leaves  in  their  hands,  and  some  with 
girdles  hastily  made,  barefooted  they  marched  over  the 
path  he  took  again.  When  the  cortege  had  passed  once, 
the  priest  said,  "Farm!  Return!"  and,  their  eyes  fixed 
on  vacancy,  six  times  the  throng  were  led  by  him  for- 
ward and  back  over  the  umu.  A  woman  who  looked 
down  and  stumbled,  left  the  ranks,  and  cried  out  that 
her  leg  was  burned.  She  had  an  injury  that  was  weeks 
in  curing. 

At  a  sign  from  Tufetufetu,  the  people  left  the  prox- 
imity of  the  pit,  and  while  he  retired  to  his  hut,  several 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  509 

men  threw  split  trunks  of  banana-trees  on  the  stones. 
A  dense  column  of  white  smoke  arose,  and  its  acrid  odor 
closed  my  eyes  for  a  moment.  When  I  opened  them, 
my  friends  of  our  village  were  placing  the  prepared  car- 
casses of  pigs  on  the  banana-trunks,  with  yams,  ft'-roots 
and  taro.  All  these  were  covered  with  hibiscus  and 
breadfruit  leaves  and  the  earth  of  the  rampart,  which 
was  heaped  on  to  retain  the  heat,  and  steam  the  meat 
and  vegetables. 

I  examined  the  feet  and  legs  of  Raiere  and  the  two 
girls  I  had  come  with,  and  even  the  delicate  hairs  of 
their  calves  had  not  been  singed  by  their  fiery  prom- 
enade. 

Meanwhile  all  disposed  themselves  at  ease.  The 
solemnity  of  the  Umuti  fell  from  them.  Accordions, 
mouth-organs,  and  jews'-harps  began  to  play,  and  frag- 
ments of  chants  and  himenes  to  sound.  Laughter  and 
banter  filled  the  forest  as  they  squatted  or  lay  down  to 
•wait  for  the  feast.  I  did  not  stay.  The  Umuti  had 
put  me  out  of  humor  for  fun  and  food.  I  lit  my  flam- 
beau and  plodded  through  the  mape-wood  in  a  brown 
study,  in  my  ears  the  fading  strains  of  the  arearea,  and 
in  my  brain  a  feeling  of  oneness  with  the  eerie  presences 
of  the  silent  wilderness.  I  was  with  Meshack,  Shad- 
rach,  and  Abednego  in  their  glorious  trial  in  Nebuchad- 
nezzar's barbaric  court.  I  was  among  the  tepees  of  the 
Red  Indians  of  Xorth  America  when  they  leaped  un- 
scathed through  the  roaring  blaze  of  the  sacred  fire,  and 
trod  the  burning  stones  and  embers  in  their  dances  be- 
fore the  Great  Spirit. 

The  Umuti  was  not  all  new  to  me.  Long  ago,  when 
I  lived  in  Hawaii,  Papa  Ita  had  come  there  from  Tahiti. 


510  MYSTIC  ISLES 

His  umu  was  in  the  devastated  area  of  Chinatown,  a 
district  of  Honolulu  destroyed  by  a  conflagration  pur- 
posely begun  to  erase  two  blocks  of  houses  in  which  bu- 
bonic plague  recurred,  and  which,  unchecked,  caused  a 
loss  of  millions  of  dollars. 

The  pit  was  elliptical,  nine  feet  deep,  and  about 
twenty-four  feet  long.  Wood  was  piled  in  it,  and 
rocks  from  the  dismantled  Kaumakapili  church.  The 
fire  burned  until  the  stones  became  red  and  then  white, 
and  they,  too,  were  turned  with  long  poles  to  make  the 
heat  even.  I  inspected  the  heating  process  several 
times.  At  the  hour  advertised  in  the  American  and  na- 
tive papers,  in  an  enclosure  built  for  the  occasion,  with 
seats  about  the  pit,  the  mystery  was  enacted.  The  set- 
ting was  superb,  the  flaming  furnace  of  heathenism  in 
the  shadow  of  the  lonely  ruin  of  the  Christian  edifice. 
Papa  Ita  appeared  garbed  in  white  tapa,  with  a  wonder- 
ful head-dress  of  the  sacred  ^'-leaves  and  a  belt  of  the 
same.  The  spectators  were  of  all  nations,  including 
many  Hawaiians.  The  deposed  queen,  Liliuokalani, 
was  a  most  interested  witness. 

Papa  Ita  looked  neither  to  the  right  nor  left,  but 
striking  the  ground  thrice  with  a  wand  of  ti,  he  raised 
his  voice  in  invocation  and  walked  upon  the  stones.  He 
reached  the  other  end,  paused  and  returned.  Several 
times  he  did  this  and  when  photographers  rushed  to 
make  a  picture,  he  posed  calmly  in  the  center  of  the  pit, 
and  then,  with  all  the  air  of  a  priest  who  has  celebrated 
a  rite  of  approved  merit,  he  retired  with  dignity.  As  he 
departed  from  the  inclosure,  the  natives  crowded  about 
him,  fearfully,  as  viewed  the  Israelites  the  safety  of 
Daniel  emerging  from  the  lions'  den.  Did  I  not  see 


511 

the  former  queen  lift  the  hem  of  his  tapa  and  bow  over 
it?  It  was  night,  the  lights  sputtered,  and  I  was  awed 
by  the  success  of  the  incantation.  A  minute  after  Papa 
Ita  had  gone,  I  threw  a  newspaper  upon  the  path  he 
had  trod,  and  it  withered  into  ashes.  The  heat  seared 
my  face.  The  doctors,  five  or  six  of  them,  Americans 
and  English,  resident  in  Honolulu,  shrugged  their 
shoulders.  They  had  examined  Papa  Ita's  feet  before 
the  ceremony  and  afterward.  The  flesh  was  not  burned, 
but,  well —  What  ?  I  confess  I  do  not  know.  A  ther- 
mometer held  over  the  umu  of  Papa  Ita  at  a  height  of 
six  feet  registered  282  degrees  Fahrenheit. 

There  could  be  no  negation  of  the  extreme  heat  of  the 
oven  of  Tufetufetu.  I  had  tested  it  for  myself.  No 
precaution  was  taken  by  the  walkers.  I  knew  most  of 
them  intimately.  There  was  no  fraud,  no  ointment  or 
oil  or  other  application  to  the  feet,  and  all  had  not  the 
same  thickness  of  sole.  At  Raratonga,  near  Tahiti,  the 
British  resident,  Colonel  Gudgeon,  and  three  other 
Englishmen  had  followed  the  tahua  as  my  neighbors  had 
here.  The  official  said  that  though  his  feet  were  tender, 
his  own  sensations  were  of  light  electric  shocks  at  the  mo- 
ment and  afterward.  Dr.  William  Craig,  who  dis- 
obeyed the  tahua  and  looked  behind,  was  badly  burned, 
and  was  an  invalid  for  a  long  time,  though  Dr.  George 
Craig  and  Mr.  Goodwin  met  with  no  harm.  The  resi- 
dent half  an  hour  after  his  passage  tossed  a  branch  on 
the  stones,  and  it  caught  fire.  In  Fiji,  Lady  Thurston 
with  a  long  stick  laid  her  handkerchief  on  the  shoulder 
of  one  of  the  walkers,  and  when  withdrawn  in  a  few 
seconds  it  was  scorched  through.  A  cloth  thrown  on  the 
Stones  was  burned  before  the  last  man  had  gone  by. 


512  MYSTIC  ISLES 

What  was  the  secret  of  the  miracle  I  had  witnessed? 
How  was  it  that  in  all  the  Orient,  and  formerly  in 
America,  this  power  over  fire  was  known  and  practised, 
and  that  it  was  interwoven  with  the  strongest  and  oldest 
emotions  of  the  races?  That  from  the  Chaldea  of  mil- 
lenniums ago  to  the  Tautira  of  to-day,  the  ceremonial 
was  virtually  the  same?  Our  own  boys  and  girls  who 
in  the  fall  leaped  over  the  bonfire  of  burning  leaves  were 
unpremeditatedly  imitating  in  a  playful  manner  and 
with  risk  what  their  forefathers  had  done  religiously. 

In  Raiatea,  the  chief  Tetuanui  informed  me,  the  mem- 
bership of  the  Protestant  church  of  Uturoa  walked  on 
the  umu,  and  embarrassed  the  missionaries,  who  had 
taught  them,  as  the  Tautirans  were  taught,  that  the 
Umuti  was  a  pagan  sacrament. 

In  some  islands  it  was  called  vilavilairevo,  and  in  Fiji 
the  oven  was  lovu.  According  to  legend,  the  people  of 
Sawau,  Fiji,  were  drawn  together  to  hear  their  history 
chanted  by  the  orero,  when  he  demanded  presents  from 
all.  Each,  in  the  brave  way  of  Viti,  tried  to  outdo  the 
other  in  generosity,  and  Tui  N'Kualita  promised  an 
eel  that  he  had  seen  at  Xa  Moliwai.  Dredre,  the  orero, 
said  he  was  satisfied,  and  began  his  tale.  It  was  mid- 
night when  he  finished.  He  looked  for  his  present  at  an 
early  hour  next  morning. 

Tui  N'Kualita  had  gone  to  Na  Moliwai  to  hunt  for  the 
eel,  and  there,  as  he  sank  his  arms  in  the  eel's  hole,  he 
found  it  a  piece  of  tapa  that  he  knew  to  be  the  dress  of 
a  child.  Tui  N'Kualita  shouted: 

"Ah!  Ah!  this  must  be  the  cave  of  children.  But 
that  does  n't  matter  to  me.  Child,  god,  or  new  kind  of 
man,  I  '11  make  you  my  gift." 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  513 

He  kept  on  angling  with  his  hand  in  the  hole,  and 
caught  hold  of  a  man's  hand.  The  man  leaped  back 
and  broke  his  grasp,  and  cried : 

"Tui  N'Kualita,  spare  my  life  and  I  will  be  your  war- 
god.  My  name  is  Tui  Namoliwai." 

Tui  N'Kualita  answered  him: 

"I  am  of  a  valiant  people,  and  I  vanquish  all  my 
enemies.  I  have  no  need  of  you." 

The  man  in  the  eel's  hole  called  out  to  him  again: 

"Let  me  be  your  god  of  property." 

"No,"  said  Tui  N'Kualita;  "the  tapa  I  got  from  the 
god  Kadavu  is  good  enough." 

"Well,  then,  let  me  be  your  god  of  navigation." 

"I  'm  a  farmer.     Breadfruit  is  enough  for  me." 

"Let  me  be  your  god  of  love,  and  you  will  enjoy  all 
the  women  of  Bega." 

"No,  I  've  got  enough  women.  I  'm  not  a  big  chief. 
I  '11  tell  you :  you  be  my  gift  to  the  orero" 

"Very  well;  and  let  me  have  another  word.  When 
you  have  a  lot  of  ti  at  Sawau,  we  will  go  to  cook  it,  and 
will  appear  safe  and  sound." 

Next  morning  Tui  N'Kualita  built  a  big  oven.  Tui 
Namoliwai  appeared  and  signed  to  him  to  follow. 

"Maybe  you  are  fooling  me,  and  will  kill  me,"  said 
Tui  N'Kualita. 

"What?  Am  I  going  to  give  you  death  in  exchange 
for  my  life?  Come!" 

Tui  N'Kualita  obeyed,  and  walked  on  the  lovu.  The 
stones  were  cool  under  his  feet.  He  told  Tui  Namoli- 
wai then  that  he  was  free  to  go,  and  the  latter  promised 
him  that  he  and  his  descendants  should  always  march 
upon  the  lovu  with  impunity. 


514  MYSTIC  ISLES 

When  I  returned  to  my  bird  cage  at  Tautira,  I  sat 
down  and  considered  at  length  all  these  facts  and  fancies. 
I  believed  in  an  all  inclusive  nature;  that  the  Will  or 
Rule  of  God  which  made  a  star  hundreds  of  millions  of 
times  larger  than  the  planet  I  had  my  body  on,  that  took 
care  of  billions  of  suns,  worlds,  planets,  comets,  and  the 
beings  upon  them,  was  not  concerned  in  tricks  of  spirit- 
ism or  materializations  at  the  whim  of  mediums  or 
tdhuas.  But  I  had  in  my  travels  in  many  countries  seen 
inscrutable  facts,  and  to  me  this  was  one.  Nobody 
knew  what  was  the  cause  of  the  inaction  of  the  fire  in  the 
lovu  or  umu.  It  was  not  a  secret  held  by  anybody,  or  a 
deception. 

One  might  believe  that  the  stones  arrive  at  a  condition 
of  heat  which  the  experienced  sorcerers  know  to  be 
harmless.  One  might  conceive  that  the  emotion  of  the 
walkers  produces  a  perspiration  sufficient  to  prevent  in- 
jury during  the  brief  time  of  exposure ;  or  that  the  sweat 
and  oily  secretions  of  the  skin  aided  by  dust  picked  up 
during  the  journey  on  the  oven  was  a  shield;  or  that  the 
walkers  were  hypnotized  by  the  tahua,  or  exalted  by 
their  daring  experiment,  so  that  they  did  not  feel  the 
heat.  Even  this  theory  might  not  account  for  the  fail- 
ure to  find  the  faintest  burn  or  scorch  upon  those  who 
fulfilled  the  injunction  of  the  sorcerers. 

The  people  of  Tautira,  from  Ori-a-Ori  to  Matatini, 
had  the  fullest  confidence  that  Tufetufetu  had  shown 
them  a  miracle,  and  that  it  was  not  evil;  but  to  the 
American  and  European  missionaries  the  Umuti  was 
deviltry,  the  magic  of  Simon  Magus  and  his  successors, 
This  was  shown  clearly  in  the  statement  of  Deacon 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS 


515 


Taumihau  of  Raiatea,  which  I  give  in  Tahitian  and 
English : 


E  parau  teie  te  umu  a  Tupua. 

Teic  te  huru  a  taua  ohipa  ra. 

Tapuhia  te  vahie  e  toru  etaeta 
i  te  aano.  E  fatahia  taua 
umu  ra  i  te  mahana  mata- 
mua  e  faautahia  i  te  ofai 
inia  iho  i  taua  umu  ra,  eiaha 
ra  te  ofai  no  pia  iho  i  te 
marae,  no  te  mea  te  marae 
ra  te  faaea  raa  no  te  varua 
ino  oia  te  arii  no  te  po. 

E  i  te  po  matamua  no  taua 
umu  ra  e  haere  te  mau  ta- 
•  hua  ora  no  te  ao  nei  oia 
Tupua  e  te  mau  pipi  i  Pi- 
haiho  i  taua  umu  r  ae  hio 
te  mau  varua  taata  no  te 
po  e  haere  ratou  inia  iho 
taavari  ai ;  ia  ore  i  puai  te 
auahi. 

E  ei  taua  po  ra,  e  haere  ai  hoe 
taata  e  hio  i  te  rau  Ti,  ia 
i  te  oia  i  te  rau  Ti  i  te  hauti 
raa  mai  te  hauti  ie  te  matai 
rahi  ra,  te  o  reira  te  rao- 
ere  Ti  e  ofati  mai,  e  tau 
mau  rauti  ra  te  afai  hia  i 
te  mahana  e  haere  ai  te  taa- 
ta na  roto  i  taua  umu  ra  e 
i  te  hora  maha  i  te  popoi 
na  e  tutui  hia'i  taua  umu 
ra. 
Ia  ama  taua  umu  ra,  e  ia  puai 


This  is  the  word  of  the  ovett 
of  Tupua. 

This  is  the  way  he  did  that 
thing.  He  cut  three  fath- 
oms of  wood.  The  oven 
was  three  fathoms  long  and 
three  wide.  Heap  up  the 
wood  the  first  day,  and 
carry  by  sea  the  stones  for 
the  oven. 

Do  not  take  the  stones  of  the 
marae,  for  the  marae  re- 
ceives the  evil  spirits,  the 
spirit  of  the  god  of  the 
night. 

The  first  night  of  the  cere- 
mony, the  sorcerers  of 
Raiatea,  Tupua  and  his 
kind,  march  around  the 
oven.  They  seek  the  spirits 
of  the  men  of  the  night,  and 
they  go  about  the  oven,  but 
they  do  not  light  the  fire. 
That  same  night  one  goes  to 
find  the  sacred  leaves  of  the 
ti.  He  takes  the  leaves 
that  float  in  the  wind ;  those 
called  raoere  ti,  and  which 
are  used  as  medicine.  He 
gathers  tbe  leaves  and  car- 
ries them  to  the  oven. 
The  fire  is  lighted  at  four  of 
the  morning.  When  the 


516 


MYSTIC  ISLES 


roa  te  ama  raa  ei  reira  te 
tahua  parau. 

Atu  ai  i  te  taata  pihei  te  umu, 
ia  oti  taua  umu  ra  i  te  pihei, 
haere  aturaa  tupua  i  te  hiti 
o  te  umu  a  parau  tana  a 
haere  ai  i  reira. 

Teie  tana  parau:  E  na  taa- 
ta e  tia  i  te  hiti  ote  umu 
nei,  pirae  uri  e  pirae  tea. 
E  tu'u  atu  i  te  nu'u  Atua 
ia  haere  i  te  umu. 

Ei  reira  Tupua  parau  ai:  E 
te  pape  e  a  haere!  E  te 
miti  e  a  haere! 

Tairi  hia'tura  te  rauti  i  te  hiti 

0  te  umu   raparau   faahou 
atura  te  tahua.     Te  Vahine 
tahura'i  e  po'ia  te  tu'u  raa 
ia  o  te  avae  iroto  i  te  umu, 
ei  reira  toa  te  mau  taata  i 
hinaaro  i  te  haere  na  roto 

1  te  umu  ra  e  haere.     Ai  na 
muri   iho   eiaha    ra   te  hoe 
taata  e  fariu  imuri;  te  taa- 
ta hopea  ra  te  tuo  i  te  ta- 
hua  e   fariu;   na   fariu  ia, 
mai  te  mea  e  tuo  te  taata 
i  ropu  e  fariu,  tau  roa  te 
taata  i  ropu  e  fariu,  pau  roa 
te  taata  i  te  auahi ;  na  reira 
toa  ia  haere  no  te  aano  o  te 
umu. 

Te  i  te  huru  o  taua  ohipa  ra, 
e  ohipa  tiaporo  te  tumu  ia 
i  taua  ohipa  a  Tupua  ra. 

E  rahine  varua  ino  teie  tona 


fire  is  burning  brightly,  and 
the  oven  is  very  hot,  the 
sorcerer  gives  his  assist- 
ants charge  of  the  fire,  and 
instructs  them  as  to  their 
duties. 

When  the  flames  are  down, 
Tupua  approached  the 
oven,  and  before  walking 
upon  it,  he  pronounced  the 
following  prayer. 

"0  men  about  the  oven! 
Piraeuri  and  Piraetea ! 
Let  us  join  the  army  of  the 
gods  in  the  furnace !" 

Then,  said  Tupua: 

"O  water,  go  in  the  fire!  O 
sea  water,  go  in  the  fire !" 

Waving  the  ti  leaves  on  the 
border  of  the  oven,  Tupua 
said: 

"O  Woman  who  puts  the  fire 
in  the  heaven  and  in  the 
clouds,  permit  us  to  go  on 
foot  over  the  oven !" 

Then  those  who  wish  to,  pass 
onto  the  oven,  one  after  an- 
other. If  but  one  falls 
all  will  be  burned.  The  last 
must  watch  the  sorcerer,  to 
return  when  he  makes  the 
sign. 

That  is  the  way  this  deed,  the 
deed  of  the  devil,  is  done  by 
Tupua. 

The  woman  called  Vahine 
tahura'i  is  an  evil  spirit. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS 


517 


ioa   o    te   Vahine   tahura'i. 

0  pirae  uri,  o  pirae  tea,  i 
ore  ratou  ia  parau  hia. 

Aita  e  faufaa  i  taua  ohipa  ra. 
Eiaha  Roa'tu  orua  a  rave  i 
taua  ohipa  ra  i  te  fenua 
Papa'a  na  e  ama  te  taata 

1  te  anahi,  no  te  mea  e  ere 
i    te    ohipa    mau,    e    ohipa 
varua  ino  no  te  po  te  reira 
te  hum  o  taua  ohipa  a  Tu- 
pua  ra. 

Tereira  te  mau  havi  rii  i  roa'a 
mai  ia'u  no  tau  a  ohiua  ra. 
Tirara. 

Taumihau  taiie. 


Concerning  Piraeuri  and  Pi- 
ritea,  Tupua  would  better 
not  have  spoken,  as  it  was  a 
useless  prayer. 

Do  not  introduce  the  sorcery 
in  the  land  of  the  whites ! 

Do  not  carry  there  this  cus- 
tom of  lighting  the  oven! 

It  is  the  work  of  an  evil  spirit 
of  the  night;  this  act  of 
Tupua. 

For  that  reason  I  have  said 
little  of  him   in  my   story. 
I  have  spoken. 
— Taumihau,  The  Man. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

Farewell  to  Tautira — My  good-bye  feast — Back  at  the  Tiare — A  talk  with 
Lovaina — The  Cercle  Bougainville — Death  of  David — My  visit  to  the 
cemetery — Off  for  the  Marquesas. 

THE  smell  of  the  burning  wood  of  the  Umuti  was 
hardly  out  of  my  nostrils  before  my  day  of  leav- 
ing Tautira  came.  I  had  long  wanted  to  visit 
the  Marquesas  Islands,  and  the  first  communication  I 
had  from  Papeete  in  nearly  three  months  was  from  the 
owners  of  the  schooner  Fetia  Taiao,  notifying  me  that 
that  vessel,  commanded  by  Captain  William  Pincher, 
would  sail  for  the  archipelago  in  a  few  days,  "crew  and 
weather  willing."  I  was  eager  for  the  adventure,  to 
voyage  to  the  valley  of  Typee,  where  Herman  Melville 
had  lived  with  Fayaway  and  Kori-Kori,  where  Captain 
Porter  had  erected  the  American  flag  a  century  before, 
and  where  cannibalism  and  tattooing  had  reached  their 
most  artistic  development.  But  to  sever  the  tie  with 
Tautira  was  saddening.  Mataiea  and  the  tribe  of  Tetu- 
anui  had  won  my  affections,  but  at  Tautira  I  had  be- 
come a  Tahitian.  I  had  lived  in  every  way  as  if  bred 
in  the  island,  and  had  fallen  so  in  love  with  the  people 
and  the  mode  of  life,  the  peace  and  simplicity  of  the 
place,  that  only  the  already  formed  resolution  to  visit 
all  the  seas  about  stirred  me  to  depart. 

The  village  united  to  say  good-by  to  me  at  a  feast 
which  was  spread  in  the  greenwood  of  the  Greek  god 
along  the  shore  of  the  lagoon.  T'yonni  and  Choti,  the 

518 


MYSTIC  ISLES  519 

student  and  the  painter,  were  foremost  in  the  prepara- 
tions of  the  amuraa  ma,  and  many  houses  supplied  the 
extensive,  soft  mats  which  were  put  on  the  sward  for 
the  table,  while  the  ladies  laid  the  cloth  of  banana  leaves 
down  their  center,  and  adorned  it  with  flowers. 

Ori-a-Ori  sat  at  the  head  and  I  beside  him.  His  ven- 
erable countenance  bore  a  smile  of  delight  in  being  in 
such  jovial  company,  and  he  answered  the  quips  and 
drank  the  toasts  as  if  a  youth.  I  was  leaving  early  in 
the  afternoon,  and  the  banquet  was  begun  before  mid- 
day. We  had  hardly  reached  the  dessert  when  the  ac- 
cordions burst  into  the  allegro  airs  of  the  adapted  songs 
of  America  and  Europe.  Between  them  speeches  of 
friendship  were  addressed  to  me  by  the  chief  and  others, 
and  I  sorrowfully  replied.  Choti  gave  the  key-note  to 
our  mutual  regrets  at  my  leaving  by  quoting  the  letter 
in  Tahitian  written  by  Ori-a-Ori  to  Rui  at  Honolulu 
long  ago: 

I  make  you  to  know  my  great  affection.  At  the  hour  when 
you  left  us,  I  was  filled  with  tears ;  my  wife,  Rui  Telime,  also, 
and  all  of  my  household.  When  you  embarked  I  felt  a  great  sor- 
row. It  is  for  this  that  I  went  up  on  the  road,  and  you  looked 
from  that  ship,  and  I  looked  at  you  on  the  ship  with  great 
grief  until  you  had  raised  the  anchor  and  hoisted  the  sails. 
When  the  ship  started  I  ran  along  the  beach  to  see  you  still; 
and  when  you  were  on  the  open  sea  I  cried  out  to  you,  "Farewell, 
Louis" ;  and  when  I  was  coming  back  to  my  house  I  seemed  to 
hear  your  voice  crying,  "Rui,  farewell."  Afterwards  I  watched 
the  ship  as  long  as  I  could  until  the  night  fell ;  and  when  it  was 
dark  I  said  to  myself,  "If  I  had  wings  I  should  fly  to  the  ship 
to  meet  you,  and  to  sleep  amongst  you,  so  that  I  might  be  able 
to  come  back  to  shore  and  to  tell  to  Rui  Telime,  "I  have  slept 
upon  the  ship  of  Teriitcra."  After  that  we  passed  that  night 
in  the  impatience  of  grief.  Towards  eight  o'clock  I  seemed  to 


520  MYSTIC  ISLES 

hear  your  voice,  "Teriitera — Rui — here  is  the  hour  for  putter 
and  tiro  (cheese  and  syrup).  I  did  not  sleep  that  night,  think- 
ing continually  of  you,  my  very  dear  friend,  until  the  morning; 
being  then  still  awake,  I  went  to  see  Tapina  Tutu  on  her  bed, 
and  alas,  she  was  not  there.  Afterwards  I  looked  into  your 
rooms ;  they  did  not  please  me  as  they  used  to  do.  I  did  not 
hear  your  voice  saying,  "Hail,  Rui";  I  thought  then  that  you 
had  gone,  and  that  you  had  left  me.  Rising  up,  I  went  to  the 
beach  to  see  your  ship,  and  I  could  not  see  it.  I  wept,  then, 
until  the  night,  telling  myself  continually,  ^Teriitera  returns 
into  his  own  country  and  leaves  his  dear  Rui  in  grief,  so  that 
I  suffer  for  him,  and  weep  for  him."  I  will  not  forget  you  in 
my  memory.  Here  is  the  thought :  I  desire  to  meet  you  again. 
It  is  my  dear  Teriitera  makes  the  only  riches  I  desire  in  this 
world.  It  is  your  eyes  that  I  desire  to  see  again.  It  must  be 
that  your  body  and  my  body  shall  eat  together  at  one  table: 
there  is  what  would  make  my  heart  content.  But  now  we  are 
separated.  May  God  be  with  you  all.  May  His  word  and 
His  mercy  go  with  you,  so  that  you  may  be  well  and  we  also, 
according  to  the  words  of  Paul. 

The  chief  listened  throughout  the  message  with  his 
eyes  empty  of  us,  conjuring  a  vision  of  the  Rui  who  so 
far  back  had  won  his  heart;  and  when  Choti  had  con- 
cluded, Ori-a-Ori  lifted  his  glass,  and  said,  "Rui  e 
Maru!"  coupling  me  in  his  affection  with  the  dim  figure 
of  his  sweet  guest  of  the  late  eighties. 

The  last  toast  was  to  my  return. 

"You  have  eaten  the  fei  in  Tahiti  nei,  and  you  will 
come  back,"  they  chanted. 

Raiere  drove  me  in  his  cart  to  Taravao,  where  I  had 
arranged  for  an  automobile  to  meet  me.  At  Mataiea 
I  was  clasped  to  the  bosom  of  Haamoura,  and  spent  a 
few  minutes  with  the  Chevalier  Tetuanui.  They  could 
not  understand  us  cold-blooded  whites,  who  go  long  dis- 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  521 

tances  from  loved  ones.  My  contemplated  journey  to 
the  Marquesas  Islands  was  to  them  a  foolish  and  dan- 
gerous labor  for  no  good  reason. 

The  trip  to  Papeete  from  Mataiea  by  motor-car  took 
only  an  hour  and  a  half,  and  I  was  in  another  world,  on 
the  camphorwood  chest  at  the  Tiare  hotel,  by  five  o'clock. 

"Mais,  Brien,  you  long  time  go  district!"  exclaimed 
Lovaina.  "What  you  do  so  long  no  see  you?  I  think 
may  be  you  love  one  country  valiine!" 

She  rubbed  my  back,  and  said  that  Lying  Bill,  who 
had  been  at  the  Tiare  for  luncheon,  hoped  to  sail  in  two 
days.  McHenry  was  to  go  with  us  as  a  passenger  on 
the  schooner.  Everybody  knew  everybody's  business. 
Lovaina  suddenly  bethought  herself  of  a  richer  morsel 
of  gossip.  She  struck  her  forehead. 

"My  God!  how  long  you  been?  You  not  meet  that 
rich  uncle  of  David  from  America?  You  not  hear 
about  that  turribil  thing?" 

She  was  on  the  point  of  beginning  her  narrative  when 
the  telephone  rang,  and  she  was  called  away.  I  knew 
I  would  catch  the  before-dinner  groups  at  the  Cercle 
Bougainville,  and  walked  there,  waving  my  hand  or 
speaking  to  a  dozen  acquaintances  on  the  route.  I 
climbed  the  steep  stairs,  and  at  the  first  table  saw  Fung 
"Wah,  a  Chinese  immigrant  importer  and  pearl  mer- 
chant, with  Lying  Bill,  McHenry,  Hallman,  and  Lan- 
ders, the  latter  only  recently  back  from  Auckland.  I 
was  immediately  aware  of  the  sad  contrast  with  Tautira. 
The  club-room  looked  mean  and  tawdry  after  so  many 
weeks  among  the  cocoas  and  breadfruits;  the  floor, 
tables,  and  chairs  ugly  compared  with  the  grass,  the 
puraus,  the  roses,  and  the  gardenias,  the  endearing  en- 


522  MYSTIC  ISLES 

vironment  of  that  lovely  village.  The  white  men  before 
me  had  as  hard,  unsympathetic  faces  as  the  Asiatic,  who 
was  reputed  to  deal  in  opium  as  well  as  men  and  women 
and  jewels. 

Yet  their  welcoming  shout  of  fellowship  was  pleasant, 
despite  a  note  of  derision  for  my  staying  so  long  away 
from  the  fleshpots  of  Papeete.  Pincher  and  McHenry 
were  themselves  lately  arrived,  but  evidently  had  learned 
of  my  absence  from  Lovaina. 

"What  did  you  do?  Buy  a  vanilla  plantation?" 
asked  McHenry. 

"Vanilla,  hell!"  said  Hallman,  whose  harp  had  one 
string,  "he  's  been  having  his  pick  of  country  produce." 

Lying  Bill  said: 

"Well,  you  'd  better  pack  your  chest  for  the  northern 
islands  to-morrow  if  you  're  goin'  with  the  Fetia  Taiao. 
We  '11  be  off  for  Atuona  and  Hallman's  tribe  of  canni- 
bals nex'  mornin'." 

I  sat  down  and  quaffed  a  Doctor  Funk,  and  then  in- 
quired idly: 

"Where's  David?" 

"David !"  said  Hallman.  "For  God's  sake !  don't  dig 
into  any  graves !" 

"  'E's  a  proper  ghoul,  'e  is,"  Lying  Bill  said  sarcas- 
tically. '  'E  thinks  you  're  a  mejum!" 

They  all  stared  at  me  as  if  I  were  crazy,  and  I  felt 
myself  in  an  atmosphere  of  mystery,  in  which  I  had 
broached  a  distasteful  subject.  I  wondered  what  it 
could  be,  but  determined  to  know  at  all  hazards,  reck- 
oning on  no  fine  feelings  to  hurt. 

"What  is  the  secret?"  I  asked.     "I  've  been  away  a 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  523 

few  months,  and  have  n't  heard  the  news.     Has  David 
run  off  with  Miri  or  Caroline?" 

Was  this  what  Lovaina  was  bursting  with? 

They  all  remained  quiet,  until  McHenry,  with  an 
oath,  blurted  out: 

"What  the  hell 's  the  good  of  all  this  bloody  silence? 
He  's  been  away  and  don't  know."  Then  turning  to 
me,  he  slapped  me  on  the  shoulder  and  bawled: 

"We  '11  have  a  drink  on  you,  O'Brien!  David  blew 
his  brains  out  on  Llewellyn's  doorstep  just  after  we 
left  for  the  Marquesas.  Joseph,  bring  one  all  around!" 

As  if  at  his  word  Llewellyn  came  up  the  stairs.  His 
countenance  was  blacker  than  usual,  his  eyes  more  than 
half  closed  under  their  clouds  of  brows.  His  shoulders 
drooped,  and  he  thumped  his  stick  on  the  floor  of  the 
club  as  he  came  toward  us.  I  felt  certain  that  he  de- 
tected something  in  the  air — a  sudden  cessation  of  talk 
or  a  strained  attitude  on  our  part.  He  drooped  heavily 
into  a  chair,  and  banged  his  stick  on  his  chair-leg. 

"Joseph,"  he  called,  "give  me  a  Doctor  Funk. 
Quick !  No,  make  it  straight  absinthe." 

Our  own  drinks  were  coming  by  now,  and  as  the 
steward  stirred  about,  Llewellyn  for  the  first  time  saw 
me. 

"Hello!  Where  did  you  come  from?  I  thought  you 
had  gone  back  to  the  States." 

"I  've  been  past  the  isthmus,"  I  replied,  "and  I 
have  n't  seen  a  soul  or  heard  a  word  in  that  time. 
What 's  this  terrible  thing  about  young  David?" 

Llewellyn's  arm  jerked  convulsively  toward  his  body 
and  knocked  his  glass  from  the  table. 


524  MYSTIC  ISLES 

"Joseph,  for  God's  sake,  bring  me  a  drink!  Bring 
me  a  double  absinthe!" 

Joseph  fetched  the  drink  hurriedly,  and  stopped  to 
pick  up  the  broken  glass. 

"Mon  dieu!"  snapped  Llewellyn,  "you  can  do  that 
afterward.  Clear  out!" 

Then  he  turned  to  me,  and  his  eyes  contracted  into 
mere  black  gleams  as  he  asked: 

"Are  you  like  all  these  others?  By  God!  I  was  pass- 
ing the  opium  den  here  a  few  minutes  ago,  and  I  heard 
Hip  Sing  say  something  like  that:  What  have  I  to  do 
with  David?  Was  I  responsible  for  his  death?  Any 
man  can  come  to  your  front  door  and  kill  himself.  He 
was  a  friend  of  mine.  I  did  n't  see  much  of  him  before 
he  died;  I  was  busy  with  the  vanilla." 

Llewellyn  swept  us  with  an  inclusive  glance. 

"Now  you  fellows  have  got  to  stop  bringing  up  this 
David  matter  when  I  come  in  here,  or  I  '11  quit  this 
club." 

Hallman  answered  him,  spitefully: 

"For  Heaven's  sake,  Llewellyn,  I  never  heard  a  liv- 
ing soul  mention  David  before,  except  at  first,  when 
there  was  so  much  curiosity.  You  're  bughouse." 

Fung  Wah  sat  there,  his  small,  astute  eyes,  in  a  saf- 
fron face,  fixed  alternately  upon  the  speakers,  with  an 
appraising  grimace  but  half -veiled.  And  as  he  sipped 
his  grenadine  syrup  and  soda  water,  he  admired  his 
three-inch  thumbnail,  the  token  of  his  rise  from  the 
estate  of  a  half -naked  coolie  in  Quan-tung  to  equality 
with  these  Taipans,  the  whites  of  Tahiti.  He  may  or 
may  not  have  known  what  rumors  there  were,  but  want- 
ing the  good-will  of  all  influential  residents  in  his  widen- 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  525 

ing  scheme  for  money-making,  he  tried  to  soften  the 
asperities  of  the  interchange: 

"Wa'ss  mallah,  Mis'  Le'llyn?"  he  asked.  "Ev'ybody 
fliend  fo'  you.  Xobody  makee  tlouble  fo'  you  'bout 
Davie.  My  think  'm  dlinkee  too  muchee,  too  muchee 
vahine,  maybe  play  cart,  losee  too  muchee  flanc.  He 
thlinkee  mo'  bettah  finish." 

The  words  of  Fung  Wah  were  poison  in  the  ears  of 
Llewellyn.  He  leaned  forward  and,  raising  his  fore- 
finger, pointed  it  at  the  Chinese. 

"Aue!  You  hold  your  damned  yellow  mouth!"  he 
said  huskily.  "I  '11  get  out  of  the  islands  if  you  people 
keep  up  this  any  longer.  I  'm  sick  of  it  all.  That  old 
liar  Morton  has  made  my  good  name  black  in  Tahiti. 
Everybody  knows  the  Llewellyns.  God  damn  him!  I 
ought  to  have  killed  him  when  he  threatened  me  in  the 
Tiare!" 

He  took  my  untouched  glass  of  Dr.  Funk,  and  gulped 
the  mixture,  nervously.  Then  he  stood  up  unsteadily. 

"I  don't  get  any  sleep,"  he  said,  as  if  to  himself, 
wearily.  "I  'm  going  to  my  shop  and  lie  down." 

He  moved  heavily  down  the  stairs,  and  we  breathed 
relief. 

"Too  muchee  Pernoud!"  Fung  Wah  commented. 

"Xo,  Fung  Wah,  you  've  sized  'im  wrong,"  answered 
Lying  Bill.  "  'E  's  seein'  things.  'E  's  put  enough 
absint'  down  his  throat,  but  'he  's  proper  used  to  that. 
Let 's  take  the  matter  up,  an'  consider  it  like  ol'  Raoul, 
the  lawyer,  did  when  Murray  killed  the  gendarme  at 
Areu.  David  's  a  young  kid,  an'  wild,  an'  without  any 
good  home  like  you  an  'me  've  got,  an'  runnin'  round 
the  Barbary  Coast  in  Frisco,  with  those  bloody  vam- 


526  MYSTIC  ISLES 

pires  there.  'Is  uncle,  Morton,  is  afraid  'e  '11  get  the 
'abit,  and  wants  to  sen'  'im  pretty  far.  Well,  'e  remem- 
bers 'e  was  in  Tahiti  forty  years  before,  an'  'e  been 
dealin'  in  a  way  in  vanilla  with  ol'  Llewellyn's  'ouse  'ere. 
So  'e  makes  arrangements  to  put  ten  thousan'  dollars  in 
with  our  friend  that  's  jus'  gone  out,  and  buy  the  kid  a 
interest  in  the  business.  Down  comes  David,  and 
Llewellyn  takes  a  shine  to  'im,  an'  soon  they  're  thick 
as  thieves.  I  see  it  all  between  voyages.  It 's  the 
cinema,  the  prize-fight,  the  upaupa,  the  women,  an'  the 
bloody  booze,  day  an'  night.  The  vanilla  business  goes 
to  hell  or  to  Fung  Wah  or  some  other  Chink.  David 
blows  in  all  'is  bleedin'  capital,  'e  busts  in  'is  'ealth,  an' 
may  be,  'e  's  afraid  o'  somepin'  worse.  'E  gets  a  bloody 
funk,  an'  goes  to  Llewellyn's  desk  an'  gets  the  gun. 
Then  'e  writes  a  letter  to  'is  uncle  in  Frisco,  an'  goin'  out 
on  the  step,  'e  blows  out  'is  brains.  I  'm  on  the  schooner, 
so  I  can't  get  any  blame." 

Captain  Pincher  lit  his  pipe,  and  the  glasses  were  re- 
filled. 

McHenry  attempted  to  pick  up  the  thread  of  the 
tragedy,  and  began: 

"Me,  too,  I  'm  with  Bill  drivin'  the  Fetia  for  Xuka- 
Hiva  when  David  croaks  himself.  I  drank  as  much  as 
he  did  ashore,  and  I  'm  no  slouch  with  the  vahines;  but 
I  can  hold  my  booze,  I  can." 

Lying  Bill,  with  his  drink  down,  and  his  pipe  smok- 
ing, resumed,  with  no  attention  to  McHenry,  and  a 
withering  glance  at  Fung  Wah,  who  was  bored  and 
walked  over  to  the  wall  to  glance  at  the  barometer. 

"Well,  there  's  David  dead  on  the  doorstep, — 'e  prob- 
ably shot  'imself  about  midnight, — and  Llewellyn  comes 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  527 

rollin'  in  a  couple  o'  hours  later,  an'  stumbles  over  'is 
bloody  corpse.  'E  's  tired,  but  'e  gets  a  lantern,  an' 
sees  the  kid  there,  like  a  bleedin'  wreck  on  the  reef.  It 
fair  knocks  'im  out,  an'  'e  sits  down  on  the  same  step, 
an'  when  the  kanaka  comes  in  the  moriiin'  to  sweep  up, 
'e  fin's  the  two  o'  them." 

Landers  broke  in: 

"Blow  me!  I  'd  'a'  hated  to  been  that  poor  kanaka  1 
But  Doctor  Cassiou,  the  coroner,  said  it  wras  suicide  all 
right.  Llewellyn  's  in  the  clear." 

"Of  course,  'e  's  in  the  clear,  an'  proper  right,"  said 
Pincher,  irritatedly.  "But  when  the  letter  's  mailed  to 
ol'  Morton  in  Frisco,  'e  comes  down  on  the  nex'  steamer, 
an'  carries  a  gun  to  kill  Llewellyn,  an'  tells  everybody 
'at  Llewellyn  dragged  his  nephew  to  'ell,  an'  M'seer 
Lontane  takes  'is  gun  away  when  Llewellyn  meets  'im 
in  Lovaina's  porch,  an'  'e  pulls  the  gun,  an'  the  Dummy 
stops  'im,  and  Llewellyn  grabs  a  knife  off  the  table. 
Why,  there  's  some  reason  for  'im  comin'  in  'ere  like  a 
bloody  queer  un  an'  abusin'  us." 

"Hell!  that 's  all  over!"  said  Hallman.  "I  '11  tell  you, 
Llewellyn  's  always  been  sour.  That 's  what  that  dam' 
German  university  highfalutin'  education  does  for  you. 
It  takes  the  guts  out  of  you.  I  know.  I  never  had  any 
of  it.  I  'm  a  business  man,  by  God !  and  I  'm  not 
crammed  full  of  Dago  and  other  rot.  All  the  Davids  in 
the  world  could  croak  on  my  doorstep,  and  if  the  police 
could  n't  get  me  for  it,  I  'd  worry.  I — " 

"Belay  there!"  Lying  Bill  shouted  at  Hallman. 
"You  don't  know  Llewellyn  like  I  do.  How  about  the 
tupapau,  the  bloody  ghosts?  You  forget  that  Llew- 
ellyn's a  quarter  Kanaka,  an'  born  'ere.  All  that  Ger- 


528  MYSTIC  ISLES 

man  university  stuff  ain't  no  good  against  the  tupapau. 
Suppose  you  were  part  Kanaka,  an'  the  kid  'ad  done 
what  'e  did  ?  I  Ve  seen  some  things  myself  in  these 
waters.  That 's  what 's  eatin'  Llewellyn,  an',  believe 
me,  it 's  goin'  to  kill  'im  if  he  don't  bloody  well  drink 
'imself  dead,  first.  I  Ye  seen  too  many  Kanakas  go 
that  way  when  the  tahua  got  the  tupapau  after  them. 
Llewellyn  remembers  what  Lovaina  said  ol'  man  Mor- 
ton hollered  when  M'seer  Lontane  took  the  gun  away 
from  him  at  the  Tiare.  'All  right!'  hollered  the  uncle. 
'All  right !  I  '11  leave  it  to  God !'  The  ol'  boy  loved  that 
kid.  'E  told  Lovaina  'at  'is  whole  bloody  family  was 
drowned  when  the  Rio  Janeiro  went  down  off  Mile  Rock 
in  Frisco  bay.  The  kid  was  'is  sister's  only  child,  an'  'is 
uncle  left  a  thousand  francs  with  the  American  consul 
for  a  proper  tombstone  on  'is  grave  in  the  cemetery. 
The  ol'  gent  worshipped  that  kid." 

Our  session  was  over,  the  dinner  hour  having  come; 
but  Hallman  had  his  final  say: 

"If  Llewellyn  's  got  the  tupapau  horrors,  for  God's 
sake!  let  him  stay  away  from  the  club.  It 's  got  so  I 
hate  to  see  him  come  in  here,  looking  like  a  death's  head. 
He  spoils  my  drink.  I  'd  rather  be  in  the  Marquesas 
with  old  Hemeury  Francois,  who  is  dyin'  by  inches  of 
the  spell  Mohuto  's  put  on  him.  They  're  alike,  these 
Kanakas ;  they  're  afraid  of  God  and  the  devil,  their 
own  and  the  dam'  missionary  outfit,  too.  They  Ve  got 
them  coming  and  going.  Xo  wonder  they  're  getting 
so  scarce  you  can't  get  any  work  done." 

The  next  day  was  all  preparation.  I  would  be  gone 
several  months,  the  usual  time  for  the  voyage  of  a  trad- 
ing schooner  to  the  Marquesas  and  return  to  Papeete. 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  529 

I  had  no  bother  about  clothes,  as  I  was  to  be  in  the  same 
climate,  and  in  less  formal  circles  even  than  in  Tahiti. 
But  I  desired  to  carry  with  me  a  type-writer,  and  mine 
was  out  of  order.  There  was  no  tinker  of  skill  in 
Papeete,  and  I  had  about  given  up  hope  of  repairs, 
when  Lovaina  said: 

"May  be  that  eye  doctor  do  you.  He  married  one 
of  those  girl  whose  father  before  ran  away  with  that 
English  ship  and  Tahiti  girls  to  Pitcairn  Island,  and 
get  los'  there  till  all  chil'ren  grow  up  big.  He  has  little 
house  on  rue  de  Petit  Pologne." 

I  found  on  that  street  in  a  cottage  an  American  ven- 
dor of  spectacles,  who  by  some  chance  of  propinquity 
had  married  a  descendant  of  a  mutineer  of  the  Bounty. 
I  surrendered  my  machine  to  him  while  I  talked  with 
his  wife,  whose  ancestors,  one  English,  the  other  Tahi- 
tian,  had  sailed  away  from  here  generations  ago,  after 
the  crew  had  possessed  themselves  of  the  British  war- 
ship Bounty,  and  cast  their  officers  adrift  at  sea.  She 
was  a  resident  of  Norfolk  Island,  and  I  wished  I  had 
time  to  hear  the  full  story  of  her  life.  But  before  we 
had  come  to  more  than  platitudes,  the  eye  doctor  had 
repaired  the  type-writer,  and  called  his  wife  to  other 
duties. 

We  had  a  going-away  dinner  at  the  Tiare  hotel, 
Landers,  Polonsky,  McHenry,  Hallman,  Schlyter,  the 
tailor,  and  Lieutenant  L'Hermier  des  Plantes,  a 
French  army  surgeon  who  was  sailing  on  the  Fetia 
Taiao  to  the  Marquesas  to  be  acting  governor  there. 
Lovaina  would  not  join  us,  but  after  we  had  eaten  an 
excellent  dinner,  she  came  in  while  we  drank  her  health. 
Llewellyn  had  been  asked,  but  did  not  appear,  and 


530  MYSTIC  ISLES 

McHenry  said  he  was  "very  low"  at  five  o'clock  when 
he  passed  him  on  the  rue  de  Bivoli.  Lying  Bill  pre- 
ferred to  spend  his  last  evening  ashore  with  his  native 
wife,  or  else  wished  to  avoid  the  chance  of  a  headache 
on  the  morrow. 

We  drank  our  last  toasts  at  midnight,  and  I  was 
averse  to  arising  when  called  at  six  by  Atupu  for  the 
early  breakfast  and  the  last  disposition  of  my  affairs^ 
By  nine  o'clock  I  had  put  my  baggage  on  board  the 
schooner,  Lovaina  taking  me  in  her  carriage,  driven  by 
the  Dummy.     Vava  was  excited  and  puzzled  by  my  re- 
turn from  the  country,  and  my  sudden  departure  for 
the  sea.     While  Lovaina  stayed  in  the  garden  of  the 
Annexe,  gathering  a  garland  of  roses  for  my  hat,  the 
Dummy  endeavored  to  narrate  to  me  the  tragedy  of 
David.     His   own   part   in   preventing  Morton   from 
shooting,  Vava  showed  in  vivid  pantomime  with  a  fervor 
that  would  have  made  a  moving-picture  actor's  fame; 
and  when  he  indicated  Morton's  abandonment  of  re- 
venge, though  the  Dummy  could  have  no  knowledge  of 
his  words,  he  gestured  with  a  dignity  that  conveyed  all 
the  meaning  of  Lying  Bill's  relation  of  the  incident. 
In  the  expression  and  motion  of  the  dramatic  mute  the 
aged  uncle  had  the  sublimity  of  Lear.     For  Vava,  in  a 
mask  and  an  attitude,  by  some  cryptic  understanding 
encompassed  the  resignation  and  appeal  to  Deity. 

Lovaina  had  left  me  on  the  deck  of  the  Fetia  Taiao, 
as  Captain  Pincher  said  that  it  would  be  an  hour  or  two 
before  he  sailed.  His  crew  was  having  a  few  extra 
upaupas  in  the  Cocoanut  House.  I  sat  on  the  rail  with 
Vava's  dumb-show  uppermost  in  my  mind,  and  a  strong 
desire  came  to  me  to  see  the  grave  of  David,  and  the 


OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  531 

tombstone  erected  by  his  frenzied  kinsman.  I  strolled 
up  the  Broom  road  to  the  Annexe,  and  past  Madame 
Fanny's  restaurant  to  the  garden  of  the  Banque  de 
1'Indo-Chine,  and  continued  westward  to  the  cemetery. 

It  was  a  lonely  spot,  that  acre  of  God  in  these  South 
Seas,  for  the  resting-place  of  one  who  had  been  so  alive 
as  that  young  American.  The  hours  of  our  last  wassail, 
the  bowl  of  velvet,  and  my  waking  by  the  Pool  of 
Psyche  with  the  mahu  and  the  Dummy  beside  me,  were 
painted  on  my  brain. 

"There,  but  for  the  grace  of  God,  goes  John  Wes- 
ley," said  the  exhorter  when  he  saw  a  murderer  on  the 
way  to  the  gallows. 

Some  such  dismal  thought  assailed  me  as  the  lofty; 
exotic  cypress  in  the  center  of  the  Golgotha  met  my  eye ; 
the  tree  of  the  dead  over  all  the  world.  I  halted  to  view 
the  expanse  of  mausoleums  and  foliage.  The  rich  had 
built  small  houses  or  pagodas  to  roof  their  loved 
from  the  torrential  rains,  and,  from  my  distance,  only 
these  buildings  and  the  trees  could  be  seen ;  but  as  I  was 
about  to  cross  the  road  to  enter  the  gate,  a  figure  ap- 
proached. I  drew  back,  for,  of  all  men,  it  was  Llew- 
ellyn. He  seemed  to  walk  an  accustomed  course,  ob- 
serving none  of  the  surroundings,  and  with  his  head 
down,  and  his  stick  touching  the  ground  like  the  staff  of 
a  blind  man.  He  turned  in  the  entrance  and  moved  up 
the  winding  path  until  he  came  to  a  grave.  There  he 
stood  a  few  seconds  irresolutely,  and  then  stooped  be- 
side the  white  stone.  He  leaned  over,  and  appeared  to 
read  the  inscription.  Instantly  he  turned,  and  started 
almost  to  run,  but  halted  after  a  few  paces,  and  re- 
turned to  the  stone.  I  saw  him  put  his  hand  to  his 


532  MYSTIC  ISLES 

forehead,  cover  his  eyes,  and  then  he  took  off  his  hat 
and  dropped  upon  his  knees,  and  bent  nearly  to  the 
rounded  earth.  When  he  stood  up  again,  he  kept  the 
hat  in  his  left  hand,  and,  his  cane  tapping  hard  upon 
the  soil,  came  through  the  gate,  and  passed  me,  unsee- 
ing. There  was  a  look  of  terror  on  his  face  that  affected 
me  deeply. 

I  crossed  the  road  behind  him,  and  walked  swiftly  to 
the  grave.  My  time  was  short.  There  I  perceived  that 
the  tombstone  had  just  been  raised,  for  the  tools  of  the 
cemetery  keeper  were  near  by.  On  a  plain,  white  slab 
of  marble  was  the  name,  Morton  David,  and  the  date; 
and  below  these,  an  inscription: 

Vengeance  Is  Mine 
I  Will  Repay. 

This  was  what  had  frozen  that  look  upon  the  face  of 
Llewellyn.  The  tupaupa  that  should  haunt  him  was 
this  inscription.  The  old  uncle  who  had  loved  the  dead 
man  had  well  left  it  to  God. 

I  hurried  away  and  back  to  the  schooner.  Lovaina 
was  sitting  in  her  shabby  surrey  under  the  flamboyants, 
the  Dummy  at  the  horse's  head.  Lying  Bill  was  giving 
orders  for  raising  his  bow  anchor,  and  the  loosening  of 
the  shore  lines.  McHenry  and  Lieutenant  L'Hermier 
des  Plantes  shouted  to  me  to  come  aboard.  Lovaina 
hugged  me  to  her  capacious  bosom,  the  Dummy  stroked 
my  back  a  moment,  and  I  was  off  for  the  cannibal  isles. 


IONEI  OE! 

A  letter  from  Fragrance  of  the  Jasmine,  to  Frederick 
O'Brien,  at  Sausalito,  California: 

"la  ora  na  oe!  Maru: 

"Great  sorrow  has  come  to  Tahiti.  The  people  die 
by  thousands  from  a  devil  sickness,  the  grippe,  or  influ- 
enza. It  came  from  your  country  as  we  were  rejoicing 
for  the  peace  in  France.  The  Navua  brought  it,  and 
for  weeks  we  have  died.  Tati  is  dead.  Tetuanui  is 
dead.  They  cannot  lay  the  corpses  in  the  graves,  they 
fall  so  fast.  There  are  no  people  to  help.  The  dogs 
and  pigs  have  eaten  them  as  they  slept  their  last  sleep 
in  their  gardens.  Now  the  corpses  are  burning  in  great 
trenches,  and  drunken  white  sailors  with  scared  faces 
burn  them,  and  drive  the  dead  wagons  crosswise  in  the 
streets.  The  burning  of  our  loved  ones  is  affrighting, 
and  the  old  people  who  are  not  dead  are  in  terrible  fear 
of  the  flames.  It  is  like  the  savages  of  the  Marquesas 
in  olden  times. 

"Your  dear  friend  Lovaina  was  the  first  to  die  of  the 
liotahota,  as  some  call  this  sickness.  Lovaina  had  a  bad 
cough.  The  man  who  looks  after  the  engines  of  the 
Xarua  went  to  see  her,  and  she  kissed  him  on  the  cheek. 
Then  the  good  doctor  of  Papeete  who  visits  the  ships 
was  called  to  see  her.  Maru,  could  that  doctor  have 
brought  the  hotahota  to  Lovaina?  She  was  dead  in  a 
little  while. 

533 


534  MYSTIC  ISLES 

"Lovaina  had  good  fortune  all  her  life,  for,  being  the 
first  one  to  die,  she  was  buried  as  we  have  always  buried 
our  people.     All  of  Tahiti  that  was  not  ill  walked  with 
her  coffin.     Oh,  Maru,  I  wept  for  Lovaina.     Vava, 
whom  you  whites  call  the  Dummy,  is  dead,  too.     When 
Lovaina  was  taken  to  the  cemetery,  Vava  drove  her  old 
chaise  with  her  children  in  it;  and  then,  Maru,  he  was 
seen  again  only  by  a  Tahitian  who  had  gone  to  bathe 
in  the  lagoon  because  the  fever  was  burning  him.     You 
know  how  Vava  always  took  the  old  horse  of  Lovaina 
at  sunset  to  swim  in  front  of  the  Annexe.     This  man 
who  was  ill  said  that  he  saw  Vava  ride  the  horse  into 
the  sea,  and  straight  out  toward  the  reef.     Vava  signed 
farewell  to  the  man  with  the  fever.     The  man  stayed  in 
the  lagoon  to  cool  his  body  until  the  sun  was  below 
Moorea,  and  your  friend,  the  Dummy,  did  not  return. 
Maru,  we  loved  dear  Lovaina,  but  to  Vava  she  was 
mother  and  God. 

"It  is  strange,  Maru,  the  way  of  things  in  the  world. 
The  lepers  who  are  confined  towards  Arue  were  for- 
gotten, and  as  nobody  went  near  them,  the  hotahota 
passed  them  by. 

"I  cannot  write  more.  O  Maru,  come  back  to  aid  us. 
It  is  a  long  time  since  those  happy  days  when  we  walked 
in  the  Valley  of  Fautaua. 

"la  ora  na  i  te  Atua! 

"NOANOA  TlARE." 


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RECEIV 

QL    JAN  21  1992 

NOV  25  199 


ART  LIBRARY 


81997 


A     000314804     6 


